Hello everyone, and special shout-out to new paid subscriber, Leticia R.! I’m sending you as many hugs as there are giant scary catfish at the bottom of the Mississippi. (Gross, sorry.)
I posted a poll earlier this week, and as of today’s vote count, a significant majority of you indicated that you prefer reading over listening. Thank you for your feedback. I think I’m still gonna experiment with the “voiceover” feature, for a little while anyway, because I’ve benefited from forcing myself to read my work aloud. What, and you thought I actually cared about you and your reading/listening preferences? Mwa ha haaaa. (Actually, I’d love to have your feedback, and you can still vote here.) In my newest poll (below) I want to know about your ideal pairing, (not in terms of a mate, but in terms of which two places you’d like to see co-offer a promotion).
It also leads me to the topic of this week’s post: an incident at a local bookstore/coffee shop in which I made an embarrassing faux pas— and yet, maybe also some new friends? (Or at least, very forgiving new acquaintances.)
It all started last Saturday morning, when I decided to head to The Atlas Collective, a new(ish) indie bookstore downtown Moline, right after yoga at nearby Sanctuary Studios.
In all honesty, I didn’t really need anything to drink, but I’d headed over because I want to continue to patronize this business, and because I’d just been handed a punch card at the end of class: one for a new promotion the studio and the bookstore are offering during Pride Month. They’ve paired up to offer attendees a free used book and a coffee, and $15 at the Sanctuary store, by completing seven punches at each.
As I approached the coffee counter, I recognized the two people in front of me as having both been in my class.
Being the friendly, cheesy, curious person I am — I mean, I am, after all, part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative because I hollered at a guy out my window — I started chatting with both of them. How did you like the class? Isn’t this cool that they’re doing this promotion? Isn’t Sanctuary great? Isn’t this shop great? Have you been here before?
After a few exchanges, I said to the woman, whose name was Maria, “If it’s okay for me to ask, do I notice a trace of a European accent?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling, “but I’m surprised you’re saying it’s only small!” She explained that she’s originally from an eastern European country that was part of the former Soviet Union. When I asked what brought her to the QC, she said, “my wife.”
“She dragged me here,” she said, and we all laughed.
The other yoga classmate was named Jack. I suspected both Jack and Maria were in their mid-to-late twenties, or maybe ?? early thirties, (which I’m only mentioning to give you a mental picture). Maria wore flower-patterned flowy pants and Jack displayed a backward hat, nose ring, and colorful arm tats.
As I was chatting with them and doing the (hopefully friendly, hopefully engaging) question-asking that I do, the Caffeine Overlord (introduced in a previous post) extended his hand, holding out a to-go coffee cup. “Atlas?” he called out. Still chatting with my fellow yogis, I grabbed it and took a sip.
And then I put it down on the bookshelf in front of me. “Oh my God,” I said. “Maria, I think I just drank out of your drink.”
“Oh, did you? I ordered the dirty chai,” she said, gesturing up at the menu—at the description for “The Atlas.” She asked what I had ordered.
“Um, I think it was the Persephone?” I said.
I had, in fact, ordered my first-ever Lotus energy drink, pomegranate- and dragonfruit-flavored. I still have no idea why I ordered it. I do not drink energy drinks. I eschew energy drinks. And in fact the very reason I, myself, was not ordering my usual coffee or chai was that, I’d already met my limit at that morning’s breakfast. (I have, as my regular readers know, a sensitive nervous system).
I apologized profusely to Maria. “I can’t believe I just did that,” I said.
She laughed, assuring me it was no big deal. But I noticed that the baristas, busy trying to make Jack’s drink (and my actual one), were now looking at us, a bit confused.
“We have a little problem,” I confessed. “We mixed up our drinks.”
The Caffeine Overlord blinked. I was not going to get away with this easily.
“Um, that Atlas was supposed to be hers,” I said, gesturing at Maria. “I took a drink out of it.”
I offered to buy Maria a replacement drink, but she kindly asked the C.O., “could I just please have another lid?”
Right at that moment, the kind barista who’d waited on me held out my beautiful pink Persephone.
“Yep,” I said. “That’s the actual one I ordered.”
Jack laughed. “Girl, that’s not even the same type of drink at all!”
Facts, as the kids say.
I apologized again. I wished both of them well and said maybe I’d see them next Saturday in class.
Then I went home to change out of my yoga clothes, the top half of which I discovered I’d had on inside-out the whole time.
And now, a punch-card poll!
The owners of The Atlas Collective and Sanctuary Studios have teamed up to offer a promotion for Pride month, which is an especially great idea since you can go to one of them on a Saturday morning for a stretch and then straight to the other for a sip.
Thanks for your vote! I’ll share the results in my next post. Have a great weekend, and keep watch over your drink order!
Alison
P.S. In addition to my Q&A with the owner of The Atlas Collective, did you know I also quizzed the owners of Abernathy's? Plus, they granted me a fun, full-on interview.
P.P.S. I’ve written about books and coffee before: on protesting book bans, and a coffee shop with surprising Hollywood ties.
Thank you for reading The Inquisitive Quad Citizen, which features stories and questions about Midwestern lives, (including my own). Subscribe to future posts, make sure to check your junk/spam/updates/promotions folder(s), and enjoy something in your inbox that is not…. an invitation to Classmates.com, which, seriously, is still a thing?
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IOWA WRITERS’ COLLABORATIVE
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So, funny, I'm still smiling. We all make mistakes that we later regret. We're only human, after all. Having your shirt inside out was the funniest part. But I love your catfish reference. Only in the Quad Cities!