Because of my job, I work at coffee shops a lot. It's usually really nice because I get to justify my coffee and new baked good, and it being New York, no one really cares that you're on your laptop for two hours at a coffee house. Actually, it being a coffee house means that no one cares, which is just fine by me and the people around.
However, it's not fine with two little girls, who apparently speak some Western European language and who blatantly stare at you and your computer screen as you try to write a blog post about butt workouts.
Did I mention that I had a big photo of a booty in short-shorts up as I wrote it? Yeah, I guess I needed some sort of visual muse or something.
For the record that was an attempt at deadpan humor, which, I guess, doesn't really work in blog form.
As I sat on the long bench at the Pret a Manger, a small cafe table all to myself, two little girls around the age of seven plopped down next to me, carrying brightly colored bags from tourist hot spots in the area. They had a tendency to get up and leave said bags at their table as if it wasn't New York. But their mom was nearby, and I could tell that these little girls were enjoying their freedom, sitting down with their cold coffees and sitting down like grown-ups.
No, really. They kept re-sitting down, re-enacting different ways to sit down. They tried kissing one another one each cheek, shaking hands, pulling out each other's seats. It was all very adorable, until they got too nosey about me.
It was creepy at first. Little girls with big eyes staring without blinking tend to have that effect really, and the first few times I saw them, I would look away, until the fifth time when I looked up and saw them just purposefully turned, looking at me. Just. Staring. At. Me.
Still.
Staring.
At.
Me.
"Hey!" I said, attempting to shame them with attention. "I can see you!" is what I meant. "Please stop staring at me with your large eyes and babyfaces. You remind me of all of the scary movies I never meant to watch but have seen through my polar bear blanket!" is what I intended.
But "hey" didn't even frighten them. No! Even as I write this, I can see the little girl with the pale skin and helmut hair just staring at me with her dead, unemotional eyes, her iced coffee perspiring in her hand as she judges me.
And damn it, I looked away first!
Work, I decided. Focus on work. On your livelihood. These little girls didn't know that what you were doing was important. They didn't realize that--Why are they both sitting next to you?
I almost jumped out of my seat.
Seeing as I was on a long bench, they both decided to sit next to me to do that creepy eye thing at my computer where I had a big butt photo pulled up. I could hear them giggle.
This was getting too much. Where were their parents? Why were they even allowed to drink coffee?
I shrunk my photo down and scrolled up to a recipe on fajitas instead, and the little girl with helmut hair went back to her seat across from her friend. But in my periphery, I could see their stupid doll eyes linger on my direction. I saw one girl make a weird hand gesture at me and roll her eyes overtly.
Slowly, I started to dip behind my computer, angling my laptop towards me and ducking low so my screen was almost ay eye level. Why was I letting two stupid, little girls get to me like this? I was an adult. I was adult doing work. They were just two crappy little girls who had no manners.
Their mother came over and said something fast in another language, and they replied back, picking up their bags and wiping the crumbs off their table with a big flourish. They sauntered off, coffee and parcels in hand. I watched them leave, gratefully, wiping away at the crumbs they just threw at me, remembering their creepy eyes and hearing their laughter in my mind.