A coffee house encounter

At the wedding reception that has been the topic of this blog the past few days, we got to chat with the groom for a few minutes. We chatted about the lovely facility, about how he was probably now on the blacklist of several people for not having invited them to the wedding, and about how, had the ceremony lasted just 10 minutes longer, he may not have made it through.

"Did you get to see any of the sights around here after the ceremony?" he asked. "I know you don't get to the city very often." He generously did not add "because you guys are pathetic wimps." But he was thinking it.

We assured him that, yes, we had seen a great deal of sights. We did not tell him that most of these sights had been glimpsed from our car, as we drove block after block in an almost futile attempt to locate a safe, legal parking spot that was close enough that we did not have to take a taxi the rest of the way.

But we did manage to park the car, and even had some time left to visit a coffee shop. There was a slight mix-up at the counter, in which the hot chocolate I had ordered somehow became a latte, which I did not order, and by the time I returned to the table I found that my chair had disappeared. In its place was a big gaping hole in the middle of the floor, where the handyman had opened a trap door to reveal a flight of steps into the Great Below. We retreated to a couch in the back of the shop.

I eyed this couch with some trepidation. Coffee shop furniture makes me nervous. It should, in my opinion, be reserved for one's own home. I do not know where such furniture has come from. I do not know what it was doing before it came here. I do not know who has been sitting there. I do not know what they have been doing while they have been sitting there.

With no other options, I perched on the very edge of the couch, determined not to touch one more inch of it than was strictly necessary.

Joe exhibited no such reservations. He sank into the couch, allowing himself to become one with it. Then he frowned. "Do you feel something from this couch?" he asked.

I almost bolted from it. "What?" I said.

"The couch. It's vibrating."

Now, you may recall a previous post about our search for a new sofa, in which we came across one that, the sign promised, would "add a little surprise from the derriere." (If you don't recall, please click here. If you want.) That couch -- a gorgeous leather affair -- had failed to deliver on this promise, yet here was Joe saying that a battered couch, which had seen any number of suspicious individuals using it in who knows how many years, was vibrating. Although I didn't feel anything, it only served to further my belief that coffee houses were to be regarded with suspicion. What kind of place was this? I thought.

At this point I noticed a man coming straight toward us. This, coupled with the possibility that we were sitting on a couch of questionable motives, was too much for me. "There's a guy coming toward us!" I hissed. "A guy's coming toward us! Twelve o'clock!"

Joe, still trying to find the source of the vibration, dug around in the seat cushion. He pulled out an object and aimed it at the guy who had just about reached us. I held my breath.

"Hey," he said to the guy, gesturing with the object. "I think my butt called your phone. Or...your phone called my butt." He handed the cell phone over to the man, who thanked him curtly and left.

"You were sitting on his phone?" I said, sinking back into the cushions in relief, almost forgetting my aversion to coffee house sofas.

"I told you the couch was vibrating." he said.