after four days of being stuck in the house because of the mother of all flu’s i’m presently sitting in the cc’s coffee house on seigen lane drinking a grande decaf mocha and eating some banana bread. i took pam’s car to church this morning taking the boys to school and stopping in the office to make sure that life had gone on without me (as anyone who knows the youth ministry knows everything went great without me there. jessica and alan make everything happen and all i do is stand around and take the credit for it all). afterwards i went to drop off pam’s car at our mechanic. sunday pam’s car started having trouble going into reverse. now personally i’m not entirely sure why we have to have the reverse gear. i think life should always go forward with our past merely pushing and supporting us. you should never live your life in reverse looks backwards. i tried this answer with pam but she insisted that she needed to be able to go in reverse. once again she has rejected my logic.
anyway, i took her car to berry automotive once again trying my “life should always go forward” joke and once again getting a blank look from the person i told it to. unfortunately, since no one was at the church office when i went this morning i couldn’t secure a ride back from berry’s automotive. therefore, i decided to walk across the street and have a cup of coffee while i phoned a few people for a ride. i called bill, my pastor, and secured a ride up to the church with him. then i went to order my coffee. this is where life became good.
there where three barristers working at the siegen lane cc’s this morning. i knew all three of them and better than that all three of them knew me. it’s not unusual for me to know one or even a couple of people working at cc’s but knowing everyone working at the store at a single moment has never happened to me before. even better than just knowing them, and being known by them was that they all three initiated a conversation with me. not just some “hey lets have small talk while i fix your drink” conversation but rather an extended conversation jumping from ” where’s that coffee cup that you used to always bring?” to “how are things at church?” and “how’s pam?” we ended our conversation with a discussion of the best cheeseburger in town (riverside patty hands down). i didn’t even have to tell them what i wanted to drink, they knew it already. while other people were in the cc’s i was the one who was the “regular”. for some of you this is no big deal. you’re probably a ‘regular” at several different spots but that’s not true for me. cc’s is the only spot that i am a “regular” at and it feels good to be a “regular”.
now, i’m going to go back and finish my banana nut bread.