I don’t really care that much about nice coffee. Honestly, it just doesn’t fascinate me. Beans,roasters and whatever else. I won’t say it’s boring because clearly it’s interesting to a lot of people, but I’m just not one of those people.
Nonetheless, every now and again I will go to a nice little coffee shop. Especially during Christmas time. Nice little coffee shops always decorate everything nice for the holidays. So, with that as a completely justified incentive, I went to a nice little coffee shop the other day.
I don’t order anything fancy, mainly because I don’t understand any of the elaborate names. I just get a hot vanilla latte. This particular coffee shop serves their coffee in actual cups. Which is really cute. But I would have liked to know that beforehand. Or else I would have clarified that I needed the coffee to go.
I wasn’t in much of a rush, just on my way to the haircut that I was 30 minutes early for (as I usually tend to be), so I sat down.
I didn’t have my book with me, which was such a shame because normally I do, in case I find myself sitting in a nice little coffee shop with some time to kill. I ended up having to scroll aimlessly on my phone, which gets boring quickly. I usually need something to break up my endless Instagram feed of minion memes (yes, Despicable Me minions. I have no clue why they think I’m their target audience — it might be because I find them unironically hilarious). This is when I began to people watch.
There was a little old lady sitting across the shop from me. She wore a bunch of layers and each one was cooler than the next. There was a funky sweater and a leather trench and a cool scarf. Honestly, I’m really surprised she wasn’t overheating, but maybe it’s because old people get cold easily. I think that’s a fact. Or maybe they get hot easily? Something about the temperature never being right. Either way, I would have been sweating through each and every layer. That’s another thing about little coffee shops. They’re little. There’s not much to heat. And yet they jack that thermostat up.
Other than the internal temperature discrepancies, this lady seemed similar to me. She had a book and wore clothes that I’d wear and her hair was snow white, which my grandma always tells me that my hair will become because of our genes (not a gray strand in sight). Also, she looked kind of like me. I’ve never seen a doppelgänger of mine in person and, I’ll tell you what, it’s a bit freaky. So freaky that I started questioning if she was me from the future. Logistically, I don’t know how that would work (I need to brush up on my time travel laws), but maybe it’s possible.
She could have been sent on a mission to travel back to a little coffee shop that her past self (me) would be in. Why? Because I was in danger! The haircut I was going to get would be a big mistake! Well, that wasn’t it. My hair looks great. And she didn’t look worried. Or warn me about anything at all.
Whatever, I don’t know why she was sent back in time. If you want to figure that out, you’ll have to ask the Future Police. All I know is that, until I’m proven wrong, her being my future self is a major possibility. If she is my future self, how cool will I be! She was wearing a leopard print trench coat!
You know, this stranger (Future Me) got me looking forward to being old and gray … well, old and snow-white. I’m excited to be that cool, reading books in little coffee shops. Maybe I’ll even order something fancy by then because I know what the crazy names mean and I have disposable income.
She also got me thinking about what Past Me would think of me now. I don’t think Past Me was sitting in the coffee shop either, but maybe I missed her. You’d have to ask the Past Police.
Regardless, if Past Me saw Present Me I think she’d think I’m pretty cool. I think it would make her write in her little journal something similar to this piece, about the college version of herself that she is looking forward to becoming. But she’d definitely think the reading thing is crazy. She wasn’t much of a reader. But she did like to write. “She” being me. I liked to write. And I still do. I wonder if the old lady in the little coffee shop likes to write.
If I got to the bottom of that then maybe I’d know for sure if she was Future Me. I know I’ll still be writing then. After all, I can’t see myself tiring out of this thing anytime soon. I like writing about strangers,time travel, and, well, I guess me. And if that’s such a crime, call the Present Police. So … just “the police.”
