Bored observations from a crowded coffee shop and my subsequent discovery of the official Greater Spokane Coffee Shop Schedule

N.B. This is not Indaba. This is a nice stock photo I got for free on the internet.

Indaba Coffee, West Central
Sunday Afternoon

–There are so many people here. I think they are all college students here to “study,” but the proliferation of high-decibel verbal exchange going on right now greatly undermines the signified value of the word, “study.”

–Granted, my sense of what it means to study (i.e., private, concentrated silence) is reflective of the dominant western pedagogies that I was brought up in. Maybe colleges have transcended this limited way of teaching and learning, and this high-volume and ebullient free flow of ideas going on in Indaba is actually more conducive to effective learning? Who am I to be so annoyed?

–“IT’S TOO COLD FOR ICE CREAM!” says a well-groomed male student sitting across from a pretty-looking female. It’s hard to know what this has to do with the Biblical Greek Grammar textbook next to his laptop, but then again, I didn’t study Biblical Greek.

–The guy sitting in the chair next to me (there is no private space, currently, in this crammed coffee shop) appears to be Skyping someone, and he’s managing to do it without any sign of self-consciousness. This is to both my annoyance and to my great awe.

–I hope my Skyping tablemate doesn’t look over and read what I’m writing. I have sort of tilted my laptop screen away from him, to discourage this.

–To my relief, nobody saw me watching this dog video that a friend sent to me, as far as I can tell.

–Even though it’s crowded and loud, I think I prefer the college students to other alternatives. There was another time that I was in this same coffee shop (a Tuesday afternoon), and interspersed perfectly at every other table were white males all in the 20-35 year old age range, all dressed somewhere between an REI and Nordstrom Rack, all working independently on something on a computer, all wearing a baseball cap of some kind. I sat down, hating myself, and took my computer out, and removed my hat.

–I’ve seen three of the same people here that I ‘sort-of-know’ that I saw on a Sunday a couple weeks ago at a different coffee shop. The reason I came to this coffee shop and not the other was to avoid dealing with the irksome swarm of ‘people I sort of know.’ I think Spokane needs some more coffee shops. Or maybe all the people who keep going to the same coffee shops need to find something else to do. Including myself. But what else is there to do?

–Is there just a rotation that happens? Is there some sort of posted schedule that I’m missing? There has to be.

–I’m eating an apple that I’ve brought from home, but I’m worried that my munching is annoying the guy sitting across from me. He has headphones in, but that doesn’t mean anything because I also have headphones even though I’m not listening to music (as a signifier to “leave me alone”). He hasn’t said anything, and his body language could be interpreted either way. However, I don’t want to ask him if my apple munching is bothering him in the off-chance that it currently isn’t, but that by bringing it into his awareness I cause him to be bothered by it thereafter. But I’m really hungry, so I can’t just not eat my apple. My course of action is to take smaller bites, and to try to chew quietly. His departure 10 minutes later is as open to interpretation as his body language.

–The nice thing about being in a coffee shop filled entirely with what you suspect are Bible college students is that you don’t have to bother with the need to secure all your valuables whenever you get up to go to the bathroom.

–Ok, so while I was waiting in line for the bathroom, I absently scanned Indaba’s bulletin board, and sure enough, slightly concealed beneath an advertisement for a Yoga workshop, I found it: the Greater Spokane Coffee Shop Schedule. I KNEW it existed. I’ve summarized it below for you.

The Greater Spokane Coffee Shop Schedule

This Sunday, Moody Bible Institute students will be at Indaba (I knew it), and Whitworth students will be at Vessel. The following Sunday, they’ll switch. White moms with babies have the Rockwood on Thursday midmorning, from 10-11:30. Church pastors from all over greater Spokane have the Rocket on Garland forever and ever, amen. White males with nothing to do have Indaba on Tuesday afternoon from 2-5:30, but also on Wednesday morning from 7-8am (this is for the white-males-with-nothing-to-do “early bird contingency” sub-grouping). The early bird contingency hour is dependent on how much seating remains unclaimed by small groups and book clubs who have Indaba Wednesday morning from open until noon. Gonzaga students will be wherever the hell it is Gonzaga students go to study. Grassroots activists will be at Atticus on Saturday morning, until they are annoyed out by cappuccino-sniffing corporate assholes from Spokane’s business elite around 11. Boots Bakery will receive the displaced activists on Saturday afternoon, along with all the other displaced people they receive, God bless them. Older people living on the north side are encouraged to brunch casually at Petit Chat from 10-2 on any weekday, in spite of the disorganized and anxiety-inducing frenetic service they will receive from the staff there whenever it gets remotely busy. Nobody will be at Batch Bakeshop in West Central, because they never seem to be open when you want to go.

Everyone else not covered by the schedule as posted is encouraged to patronize one of Spokane’s many drive-through coffee stands, those stands that when you drive by them you think, “How are there so many of these?”