metamorphasis (non kafka style)

if i didn't know better, i'd a sworn there was a punking or an x-ing or a yanking of the crank going on.

if i hadn't seen the diminuitive thai dude ordering the same blackcurrent tea, firing up the same efficiently inexpensive laptop, tip tapping away, wearing sound erasing headphones; every morning in the same quiet way... i would've been sweeping the joint for a hidden digi-cam.

you get a mental blueprint of the regulars. she's a cool rockabilly chick who leaves peet's for a morning of self-gratification and splatter art. he's a middle aged middle manager, frayed around the edges, looking for an affair or a shot-gun. she's a spoiled trophy wife pushing 30 and thinking about botox.

it's bull shit. but its a comforting stormy-ship-in-a-calm-harbour bull shit.

thai dude is soft spoken and shy, a writer, maybe working on a 'buddy cop' flick.

this morning, he gets the first cell call i've ever heard him get. and he metamorphoses. loud mouthed. machismo. crass. apparently adores boxing and kung fu and girls with bodies like 12 year olds. he has a snickering laugh and mean spirited sense of humour.

he does a really loud, really gay impersonation of mike tyson. "shit dude, don't step to me, i'll tear your ass off!"

he refers to lindsay lohan as 'that slutty chick with the really big ass boobs."

thai dude was so awful, so voluminously loud, and so long in chatting (10 minutes and counting) that i can still hardly conceive it wasn't a joke. or a lesson about judging books by their covers or about the false sense of privacy a cell phone conveys.

if i can't count on thai dude to properly play the role i've randomly assigned him, what have i got? anarchy, i tells ya! dogs and cats, living together. everything cast assunder-

the trophy wife's boobs are real and she bakes muffins for the homeless and is a part of a liberal think tank studying global warming!

wait, no, i just checked. their fake. whew.

okay, i'm fine again.