When I go out of the house to write, I often find myself people-watching instead. Distracting, yes, but still sufficiently interesting to write about. I’ve done this several times before. Here is some more!
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What do people do at coffee shops? Talk to people on their cell phones who aren’t there at the shop with them. There ARE people with them, but they don’t speak to each other. They only speak to their friends who aren’t there with them – likely setting up times when they can get together for coffee and talk on the phone to the person they are actually at the shop with right now.
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Walk inside the cafe. Spot two local mothers who don’t believe in spanking their kids. Their children are tearing the place apart while they try to talk them out of their destructive frenzy in sugary voices. Walk right back out the door.
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People all around are having VERY personal conversations. Some are ridiculously loud. Others are so quite I have to strain to catch a scrap of their gossip. The second sort is OK with me. The other, shameful, and apparently oblivious.
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Smokers make for strange fellows. Balding middle-aged guy with the grey jacket would not in a million years converse with the young girl in the mini skirt. Not at work, not at a party, not at church or anywhere else they might show up. But they’ve gotta have a smoke and they’ve gotta stand 20 feet away from the door and there they are for most of Friday night.