Picture Sunday morning:

sweltering, sunny, hung-over,

and the Katsu and I are off to procure some quick breakfast-food before heading south for visits with the families. We recently discovered this crepe and coffee joint near our apartment, and although the service is less than exemplary (read: your order of iced coffee is met with a blank yet menacing stare), the food is good. So crepes it was.

It’s worth mentioning that, although this particular suburb is full of wealthier-than-average humans, the general tone of the place is affable if eccentric. But I SWEAR TO GOD, someone must have brought out the crazy stick on this cafe. Because seriously, EVERY CUSTOMER IN THERE WAS A FREAKSHOW.

ie)
Pregnant lady at table with husband (who, incidentally, is wearing BUTTERFLY CLIPS circa 1994) plows through several sandwiches and talks at (not “to” but “At”) her husband who is too engrossed in his PowerBook to give her the time of day.

ie)
Old man in short bahama shorts and a turquoise top shuffles around the cafe like a rehabilitated stroke victim, holding an iced coffee in his hand and refusing to adjust his pattern of shuffling to accomodate the other customers.

ie)
Crazy woman ordering eggs dictates (through a pane of glass) JUST HOW HER EGGS are to be prepared. (scrambled before they are put on the griddle, just a touch of salt, no no, that’s too much salt). So basically you have this slightly overweight middle-aged woman screaming (SCREAMING!!) across the counter:

SEE? DO YOU SEE HOW THE EGGS LOOK DIFFERENT NOW?? YES. YES THEY LOOK DIFFERENT. DON’T COOK THEM TOO MUCH. THE EGGS – DON’T COOK THEM ANY MORE – THOSE EGGS ARE JUST THE WAY I LIKE THEM. YES. JUST THE WAY I LIKE THEM.

… as though not only the chef, but also everyone else in the cafe would not survive another moment should they miss this all-important tutorial on how to prepare scrambled eggs.

Katsumi and I left feeling like refugees from a halfway house for rich WASPs.