At Starbucks

Every Thursday, my sister-in-law Tia and I get together with my mother-in-law. We run errands or just visit. No matter what we end up doing, we always start at Starbucks. We take turns paying and it gives us the chance to catch up and get my mother-in-law out of the house. Sometimes all we do is go to Starbucks.

Today we decided to go to Trader Joe's, but of course, we first went to Starbucks. We ordered our usual drinks - Gingerbread Latte for Mom, soy decaf mocha for Tia and nonfat chai with a pump of chocolate for me. Tia and Mom found a place for us to sit. I was standing at the counter waiting for our drinks. I glanced around the room and saw a man sitting in one of the comfy chairs that Starbucks tends to have in their stores. He was very well dressed in a black suit with a red scarf around his neck and a red hankerchief in his breast coat pocket. He was mostly bald and had a white, well-trimmed beard. His shoes were shiny black and he was talking on his cell phone. He looked exactly like Cecil from the movie Mr. Deeds. Cecil was the cohort of Chuck Cedar, who was trying to trick Deeds out of his inheritance. Cecil hung out with a rogue, but deep down you could tell he was a decent guy. Between the clothes and the demeanor and the use of the cell phone, I thought I was seeing a scene from a movie. All he needed was a pipe in his mouth. It made me want to laugh, but of course, its rude to laugh at someone that you don't know sitting in a Starbucks. So I didn't laugh. I would have loved to have known who this man was and to ask if anyone had ever mistaken him for Cecil from Mr. Deeds.

My mother had always told me not to bother people. Don't bother people when you're on the bus. Don't bother people when you're out shopping. Don't bother people you don't know. I might have to rethink that. I want to go back and "bother" that man and find out a little bit of his story. I'll bet it was interesting. And I want to tell him who I think he looks like. He might get a kick out of it.