new.

I have a new routine that I'm loving. Well, to be honest, I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a real "routine," but I'm pretty sure this has potential. Conveniently, on the route I drive to work every morning is located a Whole Foods. It's more of a neighborhood-ish type of WF--still overpriced and a bit sold out, but with more of a local, home-y feel. Despite its shortcomings, I prefer it to the other stores. Today I had a few extra pre-work minutes, so I stopped in for a coffee. The barista, who I will only refer to as Beanz, quickly talked me out of an iced coffee + soy because it would be too watered down and instead convinced me to have an iced Americano. It only took me about 3 seconds of contemplation to cave and go with her suggestion. In retrospect, I wish I wouldn't have because now I have this weird, mildy nauseating coffee buzz that I fully blame on Beanz. Lesson learned.

While Beanz was brewing my Americano we had a little conversation about cold vs. warm coffee and of course . . . the weather. Gross. She told me some elaborate story about biking in gorg weather which turned into sleety hail within minutes and then ended it with a "that's Colorado weather for ya!" OK. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is convinced that their state should take home the blue ribbon for eff'd up weather. Nebraskans, Michiganders, Connecticutters, Californians (seriously? get over it CA.), Wyomians (?) . . . the list goes on. So I took Beanz with a grain of salt, wished her well for her day, and went on my merry way to the muffin case. Mmm raisin bran muffinnnnn.

The checkout line guy is by far my favorite part of this little routine. I think I'll refer to him as Chip. He looks like a Chip. He's this teeny sprite of a man with enough energy to power seven of my office buildings. He always has something obscure to say and truth be told, I want to be his friend. I hope he hasn't fully picked up on that fact yet because I'm really trying to play it cool and ease into our regular customer/cashier friendship, but he seems pretty perceptive. Anyway, today Chip was asking another customer and me what "wie getz" means . . . so I think to myself, "Self: this is your chance! You know this!" So I nonchalantly said, "it means 'what's up' in German . . . " (loosely. I know it's more like "How are you?" but whatever) Chip's face lit up and the other customer, slightly shocked, turned to me and said, "Ahhhh well, danke schoen" in what had to have been the worst German accent recorded in the history of sound waves. I'll give him credit for knowing at least that, I guess. Chip, on the other hand, was ecstatic. He then told me that he knows how to say hello and good-bye in seven different languages, but that's as far as it gets. I assured him that at least he has some way to speak to other people and the rest could be done through visual cues . . . and some other pointless jargon . . . then he pointed to a button on his apron (ooo flair) that was a picture of Earth, leaned in and half-whispered, "Hey, we're all on this crazy life boat together, right?"

He couldn't be more right about that.