Dry Humour on the Wet Coast

I’m sitting in a different coffee shop than usual today for a change of scenery. Usually I sit with my back to the window because it’s the most comfortable spot with close access to the electrical outlet (my MacBook’s battery is farked and can only go for about 15 minutes unplugged before loosing consciousness)

But today that spot has been usurped by a middle aged dude who appears to be drinking lemonade and working hard on some paper work.

So now I’m sitting in a near by seat with a great view of the window.

One of my favourite past times is people watching. I like to observe the march of life go through it’s paces and wonder about the people who walk by. Where are they going? What are they doing? What is their story?

As a journalist, one of the perks is having an excuse to go up to complete strangers and get in their business. But from this vantage point, behind two pane of floor-to-ceiling window, I can only imagine what people are up to.

Let’s make up some stories. I’m going to describe someone that walks by and then make up a history for them. Apparently, this was one of my grandfather’s favourite pastimes when he was a younger man.

- A younger man in his mid ’20s stanfs at the lights waiting for the red hand to change to a white walker. He’s looks to be taller than me, maybe 6 feet tall. He has a buzz cut and is wearing a black tank top and blue jeans. The fellow is sporting some of those god-awful “racing” shoes that have become oh-so popular in the last couple of years. You know the ones; they look like slippers, but with a large Puma stripe down the side. I think they look like leather socks. The guy looks to be in pretty good shape, and has a full sleeve of black-ink tattoo work up his right arm. His shirt has decals with crappy red tribal inspired artwork on them and the words “FUCK YOU” printed in old English script at the base of his neck.

Let’s call his Carlos. Carlos is the youngest of five brothers and was beaten everyday by his older silbings just for the sake of it. Even though he’s a grown man, Carlos’ voice has yet to bottom out, making him nervous everytime he has to speak. By spending all of his time in the gym, getting tattoo’s, and wearing offensive clothing, Carlos has put up a tough shell around him. This way no one will every think about picking on Carlos. He hangs out with the tough guys and goes to all the great clubs. Carlos bangs all the hottest skanks and has jagger bombs for breakfast. But he doesn’t tell anyone that he’s scared to death of the dark and secretly wants to be baker.

- A slender girl with toned arms walks by with with two dogs. One is a Yorkshire Terrier and is cradled in her right arm next to her breast, along with her shiny gold-hued purse. The other is a Jackrussle that is walking at the end of an long, extendable pink leash. The Jack’s haunches shiver when it stands still. It might be uncomfortable or sick. Who knows. The girl, well more a woman than a child, is wearing a flowing dress, both loose and tight at the same time. Little is left to the imagination, and her figure is almost too thin. She is wearing large black sunglasses with gaudy metallic embellishments along the arms, just above her temples. She’s chewing gum with her mouth open.

Let’s call her Becca. It’s short for Rebecca, but she doesn’t like being called by her full name because it make her feel old, and old people are totally gross. She doesn’t work, but why should she have too. Her daddy promised that he’d take care of things until she graduated from University, which makes sense because that’s her parent’s job; to take care of her. When she’s done school, she hopes to marry rich, but not an old guy, because that’d be gross. No, Becca is hoping to meet a nice guy at the bar who wears expensive shirts and has a shiny watch. He’ll have a nice car and drive her to expensive restaurants. Because she deserves it. Becca is on her way home to drop off her pups before she goes to Yoga-lates. They’re so cute. Except when they poop. That’s gross. The Jack Russle, who she names Jack Sparrow, has been pooping a lot lately and it stinks, a lot. She hope the cleaning lady managed to get the stain off her blue yoga mat, because that’s the one that matched her new Lu Lu Lemon pants that she’s going to wear to class and if she has one of her other mats, that’s totally going to suck because she’s going to have to find a different outfit to wear.

- A guy wearing a beige tilly hat, camouflage shorts, white socks, a brown shirt and black cross trainers is walking past Steamrollers. He has glasses with a modst wire frame. He looks to be in his mid 20’s and is kind of frumpy. He looks at the ground when he walks.

His name is Kevin. He works for one of the videogame companies in Yaletown. Usually he doesn’t leave the office for lunch, but he’s out of redbull and ramen, so he needed to make a stop at Choices Market to pick up some supplies. Kevin has been working in the industry since he go out of school and thinks it’s the best job in the world. He gets to roll in whenever he feels like it and there’s a foosball table in the office. He does coding, which is fine by him. He could program in his sleep. One of his favourite things to do is to find bugs that other people left behind doing a messy hack and fix it. He’s the bug terminator. Kevin wished people called him the Terminator. But people in the office usually just call him Safari Man because of his lucky tilly hat. The guys in the creative department give him a hard time about his Camouflage shorts. The artist say stuff like “Where are you legs, Safari Man?” and “How’d you manage to float over here?” But Kevin doesn’t mind the art guys too much. Keving doens’t mind, because he knows that he makes at least twice as much as they do. That, and he’s the Terminator.