Password protected, free wireless

Gene Coffeebar
Sunday, September 12th
11:03am

Converse sneakers tucked beneath thick-rimmed glasses.  Plaid shirts.  Art mags.

Free range organic eggs breakfast wrap, $5.50.

A pie-sliced building with minimalist décor and detached coolness.  A designer barista stands at the counter tending to a steady stream of customers.  On occasion she abandons her post to collect dishes.

Concrete floors intersect with white walls.  A small refrigerator is stocked with glass bottles of water.  Condensation forming along the windows that provide a panoramic view of Mount Pleasant’s three corners – Community centre meets coffee bar meets porn theatre.

A disaffected crowd with the occasional out-of-place patron.  Students. Young couples.  Beards.  Long wooden tables where strangers sit elbow-to-elbow on white stools and bench seats.  Accompanied by designer lattes, customers are fixated on their Macbooks, their textbooks, their novels.  A man with a camera draped around his neck browses through Google Images.  Password protected, free wireless.

Wet cars idle at red lights.  Clinking-cups-on-saucers.  Classical music whispers in the background.  A shrill operatic voice interrupted by a loud sneeze.  A man reading “What the Bleep do We Know” looks up for a moment, a heightened sense of awareness fuelled by organic, fair trade coffee.

A pair of children sit across from each other. The young boy adjusts his messenger bag.  The girl flips through the pages of “The Usborne Little Book of Chocolate.”  They share a cookie and sip on San Pellegrino.  Dad steals a photo with his iPhone and Mom brings them a plate with two croissants.  She promises the other patrons, “Don’t worry, they’re well trained.”