Now I am not a coffee drinker nor am I a neo-beatnik, but I do stop in here from time to time to get a dessert if Deli On Butler Street is out of sweets. I usually get one of their brownies which are as big as floor tiles or one of their pancake-sized chocolate chip cookies. Each is a fine, fine, soft, chewy confection that will turn heads and invite stares. It's the pastry as conversation piece. Ingenious.
"Where'd you get dat big ass cookie, man?"
It always feels a little weird when I walk in here, however, as if I'm a vagrant that stumbled into a library. Aside from hearing WYEP or NPR on the radio, it's shockingly quiet. None of the customers smile. It appears that they're all trying to impress each other with what they're...reading? You know these people live for "Missed Connections" on craigslist.
Uh-oh. Let's hope someone didn't write about me. Nah. I don't stay long enough. I'm always in and out like a burglar.