anecdotal cafe reviews, coffeeshop reports, and coffee musings

tableaux'd by: thos. more and j.h. trefry

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No breakfast for our heroes today, as they set to the task of unloading the trucks at dawn. Some initial trouble is encountered when they are unable to detach the trailer from the car; a gaunt, raving greaseball approaches.

“Here, let me get on the bumper of the truck and shake it; it only weighs 18,000 pounds, math is my thing, physics too, I reckon my 120 pound frame might be just enough to disengage the trailer hitch. Man, I’m feeling nice from that caramel cappuccino Aimee’s fixed up for me. I got a case of Four Loko if anyone here needs a bump. I think I’ll take one now. I love the sound of a can cracking open. It reminds me of The Jerk when he is shooting the oil cans. Who was in that, George Carlin? He was a white guy who says he was born a poor black child! Hey, that reminds me; did you know that in Africa they don’t shave? They just burn their hair off with matches. I’m going to start doing that. Manscaping with fire! Woah, this box is heavy; I’ll just leave it here for someone else. What’s in there, records? Say, if you like records, you should go to the music store on Mass, I’ve found some crazy shit there, man. You could also go to the Social Service League Store, they just have stacks of records there all the time. I get all my dishes there. My daughter tells me that it’s gross because she doesn’t want to eat off of used dishes. I tell her what do you think a restaurant uses? Hey, that reminds me, if you want some food after this, there is a diner that makes the best funnel cakes in Kansas just down the street. I go there for lunch every day. We should hang out later. Where do you want this table? I wish I had an extra arm growing from my back, because that would make it easier to carry stuff. I think you’ll like the table right here; I know you will, because we artists think alike. I can introduce you to the art scene here. Sorry, braja, I can’t do it tonight, because I have a cage fighting match later. Man, I’m starting to crash; can I sit on your chair for a minute? I hope it doesn’t soak up sweat. I could use a teenth right now. Hand me another one of those Four Loko, eh? I prefer the coconut. Peace out!”

JHT: “It must be nice to be that guy. Its hotter than a witch’s tit and he didn’t even break a sweat. I’ll bet he can’t even remember waking up this morning.”

…

Aimee’s is best entered from the rear. As JHT recently discovered in the New York Times think-piece about a critic driving to West Virginia and related to Thos, ‘the journey is often better than the destination’; our travelers enjoy such a journey as they approach the windowless cinderblock wall and step through a steel cargo door into a black passageway. The scales fall from their eyes as the passage opens into a room where a line of yokels perch on stools behind plates of eggs and bacon. Antique chandeliers are being sold in an adjoining room.

Thos: “This place is not suitable for Cafe Tableaux. They are cooking something in a frying pan.”
JHT: “But I got to have an iced coffee. I need that afternoon buzz!”
Thos: “For fucksake, Is that a meatball grinder?”

Our boys take their cold beverages – JHT’s 16oz and Thos’s 20oz — to the rear of the shop where there are few high back chairs far enough from the grill. JHT, having been holding in his shit since arriving in Lawrence twenty hours ago because there is no toilet paper at the CT lake cabin, deposits his drink, which he declares, “tastes like ice cream from HoJo’s”, on the side table and runs the 90′ passage to the restroom. Returning, he is sweaty and exasperated. “I can’t believe this place isn’t handicap accessible. The turning radius in the WC is like eighteen inches.”
Thos: “Well there is a set of steps between the entrance and the crapper anyhow.”
JHT: “If they started the ramp at the front door, there might be just enough linear feet to reach the bathroom floor.”
Thos: “First, I don’t know if it is wrong to say this, or wrong to avoid saying it. But, note that there are several kids in this room strapped into wheelchairs. They managed to mount the stairs somehow.”
JHT: “Indeed. Have you heard the music that has been playing since we came in? It has just been this endless rambling piano piece, one note at a time. It sounds like it was recorded with a Teddy Ruxpin.”
Thos: “Yes. Do you think it might be a piece composed by one of those sp’ed kids? It sounds like Satie.” Thos mimes the phonometric hammering of piano keys.
JHT: “Maybe this is their premiere?”
Thos: “I wish I knew. It is the best piece of music I’ve heard since Dummy came out.”

…

Looking over the galvanized steel and padded chairs that surround pedestal tables, while a man from the antique shoppe rages that his kid’s Wii only lasted five years, CT debates its grading scale. Perhaps too quick to pass out good grades, Thos suggests that though a ‘C’ sounds bad, it is ‘the average’; JHT believes that every place should be an ‘F’ and have to work its way from there. Aimee’s is not the worse place visited On The Road; you wouldn’t mistake it for a Drury Inn lobby, for instance. Thos argues that barring a personal insult by a barista, a refusal to offer soymilk, and/or the unavailability of private seating any place is eligible for a passing grade; at least there isn’t a single laptop in the joint. It is agreed that closing on Sunday is an immediate ‘F’.