50

we were in brooklyn at a café. I was dating him for the twelfth month or so. we were eating breakfast before I was to embark on the bus ride home. it was a very hip café and everyone at the café was attractive and eating breakfast or drinking coffee. I just wanted water. I didn’t start drinking coffee until this year, 2012. I had sat in this café alone the day before, doing women’s studies homework while my boyfriend was at work. ryan gosling had walked by the café the day before and the baristas were talking about it and I felt annoyed that I hadn’t seen him, and I also felt annoyed by the fact that I felt annoyed that I hadn’t seen him.

I walked up to the counter and said “hi, can I just have a cup of water?” and the girl pointed to the bar behind me and said there was water there. I turned around and there was a stack of cups and a tall, skinny glass bottle with a long, thin pouring nozzle. I thought “this is a weird bottle of water. I guess this is a hip bottle of water.” I began to pour the water into the cup. it was taking an unusually long amount of time to fill the cup because the pouring nozzle was long and thin and not a lot of liquid could pass through it at once.

“these fucking hipsters,” I complained in my mind. “choosing a slightly more inconvenient and difficult water container just so it looks cool in their fucking hipster café. just so everyone can stare at me at the bar just a little bit longer, pouring this here water.”

I finished pouring my cup of water and went in for a big gulp.

it was liquid sugar.

I started laughing so that if anyone was watching and waiting for my reaction they would think I handled it well, but my initial instinct was to tell my boyfriend  “we have to leave immediately.” I ate my breakfast feeling deeply embarrassed and then I rode on a bus for four hours, with variants of "I'm not a city girl" and "the city is bad" looping in my thoughts, I'm sure.