practice

Strange seredipities seem to be the status quo as far as my life goes these days. I know, I know, all of life is essentially one massive chain of coincidences according to the current line of postmodern thought, but they just keep cropping up. For instance: over the past two weeks I've been working my ass off in coffee hell (pastry purgatory?) with no real objective other than making money. Essentially I had this space of time to make as much as much as I could before heading to Maine on vacation, then moving out of my apartment, then taking off for Prague.

So what happens? The cafe is a bit shorthanded, forcing my manager, Will, to work behind the counter for a few shifts. He schedules me to work with him for most of them. What does this mean? (Fellow hell-dwellers already know, but) TIPS, people. Salaried folks don't get them. Hourly peons like myself do.

Friday was also a good example of fortunate coincidences. During spring semester I worked pretty much every Tuesday and Thursday from 12-6 as I didn't have classes those days. The majority of these shifts, I worked with Jason, and because we're both such potheads, we got along quite well, Jason fitting quite nicely into the trend of really good friends of mine who are what most people would call "weird" and/or "hyperactive." We haven't seen each other much this summer as both our schedules changed up, but Friday we worked the ol' 12-6 together one last time. As the BU campus is in a sort of interim state between the end of summer classes and the beginning of fall semester, things in the cafe were pretty relaxed.

So we're having a good time, joking around, chatting with customers, doing our normal shtick, when the dude who's been running these interesting little tests on random customers for some MIT professor (it involves money and honesty, that's all I'll say) comes up to the counter and asks if we wouldn't mind helping him out. He's always got a new wrinkle in the procedure and this time it's that someone besides him has to hand out the cash to the people who take his test. Will we do it? Sure, man. He'll pay us. Well all right! So in addition to the sixteen bucks I made in tips, which is twice what I would've expected to make on a slow Friday afternoon, I walk out with an extra fifteen bucks for doing hardly anything at all.

Cash aside, it was great to get one last chance to hang out with Jason (who is leaving Boston as well). I know he's an acquired taste for some, but he's one of the few people I know who makes it his purpose in life to be nice to everyone he meets, and the kid practically glows with generosity. All you Boston people are going to miss the hell out of him when he's gone; there aren't enough people like Jason in that grumpy old city. Just think of what the cafe will be like without that crazy loud laugh floating out from behind the counter. He really made the place his own; I can't even begin to count the improvements he suggested and put into practice. And I know working in a dumb coffee shop is about half a step up from McDonald's and we shouldn't get too excited about the cheap temporary labor we provide, but who can say what things would be like if we all approached our jobs with the degree of enthusiasm and appreciation that Jason has, not just for coffee, but for life in general?

Call me sentimental but I really appreciate being around someone who can take a frustrating situation like food service and still enjoy life enough to laugh and constantly make new friends out of all the unsuspecting caffiene addicts who shuffle in and out every day. Standing behind a counter for six-plus hours serving drinks to hrodes of unappreciative half-wits who've never cleaned a toilet or washed dishes or pushed a lawnmower in their pampered lives is hardly how any of us would choose to make a living, and yet Jason, I would say, does a better job than any co-worker I've ever known of letting it all slide off his back, somehow staying friendly, and remaining faithful that the next person in line will return his smiling "Hi, how are you today?" with a "Hi" and maybe even eye contact (gaaaasp!) instead of staring at the menu and mumbling "Ahllhavvacoffee." Maybe it's all the ganja.

I'm not very good at this myself; it's hard to work some stupid coffee job when you have a million other things you rather be doing but need the money so you can actually do those other things, all while receiving treatment one suspects would make an automated coffee vending machine want to start spraying people with scalding hot water.

In any event (my digressions are bad enough even before I get on the topic of serving coffee), here are some further fantastic coincidences (in bullet format to keep my babbling in check).

--Randomly heading out to lend a hand with Jess' boyfriend Frank's cable access TV show, agreeing to help out by being a guest, then having Frank come up with a character for me: a scientist who has mastered time travel. This is a topic upon which I can espouse at length thanks to my obsession awhile back with the exploits of one John Titor.
--Again sort of randomly going along with Jess and Nicole to Savers (think Salvation Army but not a charity) and finding a freakin' awesome big tweed overcoat that will keep me warm in Prague, as well as some shirts, a pair of pants, and a tie which the tweaked-out gay black guy wearing a t-shirt that said "Gain 'N Glow" underneath a pair of flaming black dice gave me for free after we commiserated about how hard it is to find good clothes that actually fit when you're male and not as freakishly tall and fat as the rest of America (at least in the minds of clothing manufacturers, apparently).
--Discovering that this house my parents rented in Maine has a hot tub for me to soothe my aching back, legs, and feet after working for nine straight days.
--Being somewhat disappointed that I finished off my stash of weed the night before coming up to Maine (what's vacation for if not getting baked and lounging around?) only to have my sister's boyfriend save the day last night with his own sack.
--Taking off for an aimless wander around York Beach today after going stir crazy alone in this big house because the family went off to eat lunch with some softball people and the girlfriend declared her trip to the beach with her friends to be "girl time," then happening across those very same girls as they were heading back from the beach. We ate lunch at Katie's friend's house, which is on this cliff overlooking Long Sands Beach, just sitting in the sun and enjoying the amazing view.
--One of my best friend from Rhode Island happens to be taking a two-month trip to Europe, hitting England and Hungary specifically and wandering about in between. Prague's been around for a pretty long time, but I'm pretty sure if anyone can burn it to the ground, it'll be me and Monsieur Christopher Burke.

Come to think of it, this whole big study abroad in Prague deal that I'm doing sorta came about randomly as well. I wasn't looking to study abroad, or visit Prague specifically, until one day Katie sends me a link to the program in Jordan that she's doing. I start searching around the website, clicking on the arts programs first, obviously, and, well, here I am, about to head off to Prague for a semester. Crazy.