An Ounce of Prostitution

In the late 1990s, coffee wasn’t as big a thing as it is now. Coffee shops were rare and were mainly occupied by the hipsters of that time. People also usually went to them at night as kind of a bar substitute. 

My limited experience with coffee shops during this pre-coffee shop era was in the nearest big city at the one and only coffee shop there, ‘Café Espresso’. It was nestled in the downtown area of the city, which was mostly made up of bars. This section of the city was the hub for nightlife there in the mid to late 90s.  

The coffee shop was a small, restaurant style place, where everyone was dressed ironically in bib overalls. The tables and chairs were tall so you had to hop up on the chair and then carefully scoot closer to the table without bumping the table and spilling everyone’s coffee. There was local, modern art on the walls, tile floors, and fluorescent lights overhead. I felt totally out of place. I didn’t drink coffee then, had no idea how or what to order in this foreign place, and I was NOT wearing bib overalls.  

Oh shit, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. How did I get to this otherworldly place? you might ask. Well, I will tell you. A friend of my boyfriend at the time, we’ll call him Orlando, asked us to come with him to the city to watch his girlfriend’s choir concert. She was going to school at a progressive college up north, so this was one of the few times he was able to meet up with her. In the spirit of adventure, we drove with him to the city. 

It was about an hour drive on country highways. We stopped once on the way so Orlando could take a picture of this old barn on the side of the road. When we finally made it to the city, it was clear Orlando was lost. This was before the time of GPS and smartphones, so he was relying strictly on memory. After driving around for about a half an hour, he found the church that was hosting the concert. 

We opened the doors to a full house and so we stood at the back of the church. The concert was good. It was an all girl choir from the college Orlando’s girlfriend was attending and they were very talented. One girl in particular was just amazing! She was tall with dark hair and sang opera-style. I had not seen anything like it at that point in my life. Anyway…

After the concert, Orlando checked in with his girlfriend, making a plan to meet her at her mom’s house. When we arrived, she and her friends were sitting around a fire in the back yard. We then found out Orlando’s girlfriend had plans for the night aside from seeing Orlando. She explained we weren’t able to go with her because she was going with her friends to meet up with their drug dealer and he did not like strangers. So, she left with a plan for us to meet up with her later that evening. To kill time, we drove downtown and thus ended up in the late night coffee house sitting with hipster chicks.

The place was pretty full due to it being a Friday night, so our only choices were to commingle with the locals or stand in a corner. Orlando was acquainted with a couple of the trendy girls sitting there with sticks up their butts and more than an ounce of pretention in their auras. After getting our coffees, Orlando walked up to the girls he knew and asked if we could sit with them.

We sat, me feeling overtly awkward and uncomfortable, Orlando oblivious to the girls’ obvious aversion to us. Small talk commenced.

Orlando to Trendy Girl 1: “We met at that concert with Jill, remember?”

Trendy Girl 1: “What concert?”

Orlando: “The one downtown at the ballroom.”

Trendy Girl 1: “Right. Um Hm.”

Orlando to Trendy Girl 1: “So, what do you do now?”

Trendy Girl 1: “I’m self-employed.”

Orlando, innocently: “Oh. Um. Are you a prostitute?”

Trendy Girl 1: “Hmph. NO. I’m a model.” She glared at him.

Me, sardonically in my head: Well, in your defense, Orlando, modeling is a form of prostitution. Models, like prostitutes, use their bodies to make money. You see the similarity, I’m sure.

What I really said: “I was thinking model,” then turned away ashamed of my lack of balls. Instead of listening to the rest of the conversation, I began wondering about the infinity of the infiniverse, and started hinting that it was time to leave.

I took another drink of my espresso, fighting back my gag reflex. Drinking plain espresso is what evil must taste like, I thought. The bitterness is no doubt going to linger for days. I’m not sure why I was not directed to a sweeter cappuccino or something with milk and syrup given my obvious sweet tooth. I would have been a coffee lover from then on instead of missing out on the joy of coffee for the next five years. Feeling a wave of nausea, I passed on finishing my espresso and soon enough got the party moving out the door. 

Prologue

I don’t believe Orlando ever did get to meet up with his beloved again that evening and soon after they parted ways.

The lesson of this particular evening, for those who can time travel: If you are traveling to the Midwest in the mid to late 1990s, avoid coffee houses after 10am and maybe avoid them entirely until 2005.