Foray into Coffee Shop Land

As of about two weeks ago, I work at a coffee shop.

The work is overall pretty fun, mostly because I haven't learned how to make any of the fancy drinks yet so all I do is stand at the cash register or move stuff around. The people are wonderful, and they completely shattered my expectations that they would all be hip, coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, barista type people.

Sunday nights I work a closing shift, which gets pretty rough when I have to wash dishes until 3:00 AM. The girl managing the shift is named Allison, and she just returned from Argentina. Last Sunday she wore these sneakers to work that had a brightly colored woven insert pattern on both sides. It looked like a stereotypical Mexican rug had eaten a pair of shoes. She called them her "indigenous high tops."

The other cashier who is slowly learning to make drinks is Ryan. He happens to be the CEO of Students of Georgetown, Inc., of which my little shop is just a part. We tease him because he originally came from one of the affiliated grocery stores, so he doesn't know his way around the store any more than I do. On his first day at work he broke a bagel bin. It was pretty tragic. He is also allergic to milk and caffeine. He calls himself the "worst college student ever."

It's nice to know someone who will laugh at anything you say. Ryan is one of those people. I don't really know him but it's refreshing to have someone like that around.