I went to a cafe Friday night.
I wish I knew how to make the "e" look fancy like it should for the word "cafe".
This was no ordinary cafe. It was the F Stop Cafe in downtown Provo City.
I wish it we all called it "Provo City".
I was really looking forward to spending time in a cozy cafe with a good friend, sipping hot chocolate. Neither of us knew very much about this F Stop place.
I wish I knew what F Stop meant.
As my friend Spencer and I approached the door, I looked inside. It kind of looked like the furniture from a cozy cafe was placed right in the center of an art gallery: slightly out of place. I could see that there were several people there but I couldn't tell exactly how crowded it was
because there was no furniture around the perimeter of the cafe. I mean, how could they put furniture next to the wall when that's where all the art is?
We walked in the door. I have never felt so scrutinized. Every single person in that F Stop place turned to look at us. My first thought was, Oh my gosh, the cafe is closed and everyone here was invited to some special event. And here we are thinking it's open and barging in on this VIP event that we clearly have not been invited to. This could be really embarrassing if they ask us why we're here. I tried to see what the hours were on the door as we walked through but I couldn't catch them. I was so worried that this could potentially be really embarrassing. Spencer seemed totally unaffected and just marched right in, past all the scrutinizing faces and up to the line to order hot chocolate.
As we walked through the cafe, I glanced at several people as I passed them. I have never seen so many "indie/hipster" people in one place. That's it. That's why they stared at us. Our hair wasn't greasy enough, our bodies weren't pierced or tattooed enough, our clothes weren't vintage enough, and we didn't have enough cigarettes.
(Of course I'm generalizing here. I don't want anyone who reads this to think that I think that all "indie" people are greasy, pierced, tattooed, vintage-wearing, cigarette smoking scrutinizers. just let me have this moment.)
We got in line and I couldn't help but want to just watch everyone there to figure them out. Spencer explained that this cafe was recommended to him by a co-worker who described F Stop Cafe as "artsy" (he could handle artsy) and, after asking more about it, eventually as "trendy". Now he understood what he meant by trendy. Spencer then told me how he felt like everyone turned to look at us as we walked in, making us feel out of place immediately. I was so glad that he had the same feeling and we both realized how fascinating F Stop Cafe was.
And it would only get more fascinating.
As we stood at the counter waiting for our hot chocolate, I was deciding if I wanted to try a sample of the toffee they had in a large dish on the counter. A man approached. I will take this time to describe him:
- older, probably in his 50s (there was NO ONE else even near his age in the cafe)
- I wish his apparel was a little more eccentric so it would be more fun to describe but it was just a good solid collared, maybe flannel, shirt and some hard-worked jeans, and working boots
- very long, stringy, gray hair, pulled back into a ponytail
- straw hat, like a cowboy/farmer hat
- not clean shaven, as I recall
We had already made an observation about this misfit of a man (but who were we to talk about misfits). Old man approached to reach for his second or third sample of toffee and said to us, "If I die...(long pause, filled with much thought on how to finish the sentence) tell them it was this."
Spencer: "Sorry?"
OM: "If I die, tell them it was this."
Spencer: I don't even remember his response, it was so vague, and confused.
The man walked away and Spencer turned to me, "I don't really know why he said that..." I didn't know either but hopefully he was glad to have someone listen to him.
After making a few more observations about how fascinating this place was and how strange that man was (not just strange as a strange person, but strange as in, why in the world was he there...), we proceeded to sit down. If everyone hadn't already noticed us by then, they noticed us now. We just kind of wandered around, trying to figure out how to find a place to sit. I swear, every single person in that place stopped talking to watch the misfits try to find somewhere to sit. All the cozy furniture was taken, the weird big stairs in the back were occupied, and the hard wooden tables and chairs were taken. The one table available had a chess game on it and no chairs.
Spencer: "Do you want to brave it outside?"
Thoughts in my head: You have got to be kidding me because it's probably close to -30 degrees outside and I've been freezing all afternoon because the heat in my apartment doesn't work!
Me: "No."
Spencer: "Ok, we'll take this table [chess board table] and that chair [there was one unoccupied chair at another table] and I'll see if we can bring one in from outside."
Well, "that chair" was immediately taken, but we got permission to bring in chairs from outside. So after causing such a scene (really, I think just by being there we were a scene), we finally sat down and hoped to blend in a little better.
The conversation was great, the company was wonderful, the hot chocolate was delicious, the chairs were good after warming up the metal parts (the outside chairs are made of iron but they are padded :)), and the observations were as fascinating as we hoped. How could we not notice all the strange things going on? Weird pictures on the walls, weird lipstick, weird dog, weird little girl (she wasn't weird, but why was she there??), weird dancing (that only Spencer saw but I sure heard about it), weird old man (yes, the observations about him continued through the night)... Yeah, just a lot of weirdness.
After several minutes of very enjoyable conversation, Spencer, looking at something behind me, said, "I hope no one plays that." I turned to see someone bringing in a large drum. We then noticed a whole parade of people bringing in the rest of the drum kit, some guitars, and some very large speakers. Now, I don't mind a good local band, especially if it's a good show. But we didn't go to the F Stop Cafe for the first gig of some band we didn't know. After moving to a sofa, we took advantage of the time it took for them to set up, getting in as much conversation as we could, and finally had to think of a new plan when the warm-ups started.
The plan was to leave.
Remember how good we were at making people notice us? We couldn't forget about that for our exit. We stood up, let the old man take our sofa, and looked for our exit. We parked in the front, so naturally we had to go out the front door. But of course a million and a half people had come for the gig, so needless to say it was crowded, especially toward the door. For some reason, no one wanted to migrate towards the back of the cafe. Maybe they were avoiding the two misfits hogging the sofa...
We knew we had to fight the crowd. I guess we didn't want to fight that hard because we ended up walking right in front of the band. I mean RIGHT IN FRONT. I should have high-fived the lead singer. Maybe then we wouldn't have gotten so many dirty looks as we left the show that clearly everyone was there for.
Posts
