FASHION & STYLE    Full screen version   Back to Fashion Page   Back to Home Page   (Check back soon for more updates!)

May 9, 2006 :   A Shot in the Dark: Café au lait, Smack, War Games with a side of Free Wi-Fi.

The article below is collaboration between my husband, Philip and myself. I thank him for his expertise in warfare and the recognition of idiots in great haste.

I’m a coffee shop girl. This behavior started when I was about 14, sneaking out to clubs to dance, and then needing coffee to stay awake. I go to all sort of shops, and I have my favorites in many cities! I adore La Madeline’ in New Orleans and pray it is still there, at least one of them, it was my "peace zone," for the four years I lived there. Here, I have my favorites, depending on how I feel what I’m wearing, (of course,) and how far I want to go!

There is your standard Barnes and Noble coffee shop; (I am not a Star buck’s fan, so their coffee is not my favorite.) There is that wonderful dose of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee that is favored by those "on the road" such as bands, truckers, and retired people who keep their home on wheels. I love that crowd and often join them in my pajamas without even combing my hair. They love me still at Dunkin’ Donuts, no matter what I look like. There are days I want to see the mountains, have lukewarm, but excellent coffee and see my "sisters-in-fashion," and I go to AJ’s. There is an AJ’s here and if you are familiar with them, they have some GREAT food and really, really fattening deserts! I love it there too, especially on shopping days. Last, in this area, at least, there is "The Shot in the Dark café’" That is my neighborhood coffee shop and where I meet one of my best friends often. We both live downtown, and the "Shot," is just lovable, regardless of the regulars, of which I am a part.

This day I speak of is perfect. I am dropped at the "Shot," by my husband to write as I request when he is running errands. I ask this because the Shot is never boring. Never mind that my close friend tells me to sit in a certain safe place when I am there, and my husband asks the "coffee guy," to watch out for me in strong language! Still, it is my home too, this city, and the Shot feels fine to me. My day there was typical. The characters really never change and the atmosphere is one of a kind.

That day there were two girls sitting on an old sofa in the large smoking room of the Shot. Both were VERY messed up on what I’m sure was heroin. No question. I was worried about them, they were older teen-agers, looked as if they did not do this ALL they time (yet,) because they were dressed very much like Daddy or Mommy or both gave up their credit card fairly often. The stoned girls had hair that was freshly washed and highlighted at the rate of about a 3, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very expensive. Having 3 highlights are pretty good for high school students, which these girls were. They were weaving pretty badly! It was the kind of thing were one stands up, and changes their mind because they find out that their balance is WAY off, so they sit down again and try to talk normally.

The room has two booths, two tables and two sofa's arranged as if it was one’s suburban living room. It was a no brainer décor such as a coffee table and two sofas’ around it, but it was a three-piece round sort of sofa. The sign above the door says "smoking permitted," and there is a light that one would see in a theater, the sort that lights up, and it says, "LIGHT UP." It’s a welcoming smoking section and the windows look right out onto the streets of the downtown area. I can see my friend’s apartment window from one of the table’s chairs. It’s that sort of place.

On this day, as on many others, there were 2 of us using our laptops, and there was this guy, I sort of think of him as the "gun guy," because he talks about them so often. He is there so much, I am used to him and his talk, but he would shock a newcomer a bit, which is the idea. This man, Gun Guy, is the Master of a game he plays with others through the café’ in which people hunt one another, trying to win the "pot," of money everyone pays to play. He’s always there, the Gun Guy, drumming up business, or more accurately, people to play his game. When first I heard him holding court, talking about shooting people, various rifles and tactics, he was speaking LOUD. I found out later that it was to get my attention so that I’d listen to him. Instead, I blew it for him, I spun around in my seat and said, quite innocently, (I PROMISE, it WAS innocent,) "Oh! Do you like rifles?" "I ask because my husband is a retired sniper and weapon’s specialist!" I then gestured to the coffee bar in the next room and said, "He’ll be here in a min.!" Well, that made this man speak lower, much lower and I felt I was now out of the conversation that was so loud! Turns out that my husband knows who he is and has heard Gun Guy’s pitch already, with his sniper ears. Not much gets by my husband so It’s a good damned thing I’m so open about my life! If I wasn’t he’d be pretty busy finding it all out! Ha! I imagine I’m very boring to him on that level, I don’t give him much to discover, but I assure you I make it up with my severe artistic talent and creativity. Do not cry for him, he is happy, I’m fairly sure. But…on the Gun Guy’s game and the rules.

The games goes as such: Gun Guy hangs around the Shot, talking very loudly and using key words to get attention from the room like ballistic gelatin and hollow point bullets. He livens thing up with discussions about rifles and caliber’s but more over he does this to be the center of attention and thereby, pick up players for his game. The "base," of the game is The Shot in the Dark café,

To play, one must first donate $20.00 and purchase a Nerf dart gun. He advises that one should make sure it comes with the standard, by law, orange tip. The color is accepted by the local authorities as okay for a play weapon. Then after signing up with Gun Guy for the game, he needs a dossier of the player that includes where they work, live, a Polaroid and where they "breed." The dossier lists known associates and their addresses. After the dossier is received by Gun Guy, the Polaroid is put up on a board that should be labeled, (and I get this idea from my husband) "I’m an idiot and I have no Life, shoot me Please." But it does not say that, it contains the other Polaroid's of those participating in this game. The money is put into a "pot," supposedly for the winner. I would imagine that some of it is put aside for "Gun Guy," and his coffee habit. Then the game commences.

All the names are thrown into a hat and each player draws a name which is their "primary target." This is what makes me laugh the most. Imagine, you are a "primary target," for some fool gunning for you everywhere you go. For example, he/she could go to your favorite quick stop store and say, "Excuse me, have you seen this man/woman? This way, those you see daily but do not know may think you are wanted and the next time they see you, they can dial the police. Your primary target in Gun Guys game is you FIRST target, no matter how many other players you see, you can’t shoot them, until you execute your primary target, in cold blood with your Nerf dart. When you annihilate your primary target, you report your success to Gun Guy, (who will now be referred to as "GG," for the sake of my arms and their injury.) He, GG, will draw a red line through that person’s picture indicating that not only is he out of the game, but he is also out 20 dollars. He DOES get to keep the sweet Nerf gun and all remaining darts. (Hopefully for the next game he will play when his roommate, mother, wife, S.O. or probation officer gives him the 20 dollar entry.)

The next step for the successful sniper, after the primary target, is indiscriminate killing of all other players. To do this the smart sniper/ Sponge Bob killer, will read the dossier’s of all other players and hunt them down, Nerf them "into the 14th level of hell," in my husband’s words!

Imagine you are a hunted player: The successful, talented and maybe a few fries short of a Happy Meal sniper, is after you’re a**. That is all there is to it, he wants you dead and as fast as possible to get his/hers grimy hands on that pot of 20’s. This means that wherever you work, walk or play, (or get your shock therapy treatment,) you could encounter a Nerf round coming at you at the speed of a fly. It may sting like you cannot imagine because if it hits you, you lose your 20 dollars, all those other 20 dollars and in my opinion, the worst injury, you will have a public red line on your face. You are a now deceased person that should probably want to consider seeking medical treatment due to the fact that the only way that dart stuck to your face was because the would-be assassin probably licked it first! AGH!

The story that GG tells makes this game seem like the be all, end all of urban warfare. There is a sign outside on the window of The Shot that says: "Support our Gay Troops." This is a great sign and I patronize the establishment in part because of the lack of homophobia. (This hetero woman is NOT a bigot.) But perhaps the sign should read: We not only support our gay troops, but some of the idiots that come in here off the streets in their training for King Bush’s future wars.

I must end this with saying that GG takes himself VERY seriously! He does not mince words at all. When he holds court, daily, as some of us write on our lap tops and some of us talk with our friends, he is DEAD serious about his weapons, tactics and can tie every sentence, statement or question into REAL warfare. This guy knows his weapons of mass irritation.

Annalisa writing with Philip