EnnaEel Cooks

I work at a small coffee shop, which for the purposes of this blog shall be re-named the Coffee Cafe. (The silliest pseudonym I could come up with. Apologies to the owners of any real-life “Coffee Cafe.”)

Over the course of nearly every shift I’ve ever had at the Coffee Cafe, I can’t recall a time where I didn’t wish for a place to record the bizarre, and interesting, and sometimes downright maddening behavior of our various customers.

What better place than the vast internets?

What better exchange to start with than the bafflingly unobservant customer?

Customer 1: (pointing at a cup of ice water) Is this my pomegranate lemonade?
Friendly Neighborhood Barista: No, that’s an ice water.

Customer 2: So, you don’t serve things to eat here?
FNB: (raises eyebrows and glances sideways at the various candies, pastries, and sandwiches on display)

Customer 3: (sipping from a mango smoothie) Is this my latte?

And all you can think is “Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.”
You had every right to snatch up the first drink I serve, because of course it’s yours! You ordered a nonfat vanilla latte and this is a decaf americano. What does it matter, you got there first!

As I type this, there is a stack of four different Hello Kitty journals sitting directly next to my mouse. I received a few of them as far back as 4th grade. Of course they’re all still completely blank, except for the various illustrations of Hello Kitty on each page. (Hello Kitty with wings, Hello Kitty on a surfboard, Hello Kitty holding a lollipop. I’m sure you can imagine.)

I’ve never been able to start a paper journal. Something about them seems so much more worthy of the sort of significant things I mostly find myself unable to say. I’ve tried to conceal this inability by taking photos. If I could carry around a bunch of my images to hold up in the stead of opening my mouth ever again, I would seriously consider the notion before storing the idea away with other such ‘oddities of LeeAnne’s mind’ as the 36-hour day and ridiculous ideas about the fate of memory after death. Neither of which are really interesting enough to be mentioned again here.

I’ve had an online journal since 2000. It started off as an excuse to sit in the computer lab after school to spend time with a guy I had a crush on. It ended up being a place to document recipes I’d made up, and the work that went into making them. As valuable as it is to have so many memories documented in such a detailed and often angst-filled manner, I think perhaps that journal has run its course.

But even those entries, the ones that I find most valuable, weren’t significant enough to put down on paper.

I hope to eventually figure out what I want to write in these long-neglected journals. Until then, I think the things that come out of my brain in word-form will take up residence here. It seems nice enough. No previous entries to get caught up on, no expectations to fulfill. It’s nice to feel new sometimes.