coffee casualty

Music was pumping into my ears courtesy of my awkwardly pea-green headphones when I realized I was next in line.

[I refuse to go to this class without some form of caffeinated elixir.]

Flustered because I hadn't been paying attention, I reached for my student I.D. [coffee number 8762837 courtesy mom and dad]. I whipped it out with an underestimated and inappropriate amount vigor and somehow unleashed the shiny card into the chest of the tall Indian man at the cash register. In a flash he jumped up as if the orange card emblazoned with my fresh face had shocked him from a coma. Blushing, we both reached down to pick it up from the spot where it landed by his feet. Perhaps it was his impossibly long arms, but he beat me to it and handed it to me with a grin spreading across his face.

He looked at my shocked face and started to laugh.

I started to laugh.

The guy behind me started to laugh.

It was beautiful. My nincompoopery shook all of us from the stupor we walk around in so much of the time. I didn't assault him with my I.D. card, I simply punctured the comfortable little bubbles we had around us for a brief time and shared a laugh with a stranger.

I didn't need the coffee to wake me up.