Listening to Random People

Today I tried a local coffee shop. It's called Caffé and it's actually not too shabby. They have a nice wooden floor, slightly awkward tables and stools, but the cushions are quite nice. The lighting is alright and they placed a tulip on every table. The coffee tastes fine, but the mashine is too loud, you could barely hear Jamiroquai sing about his virtual reality. All in all, it's an okay place, I guess, but somehow it still feels like a rural place of misery. I'm not sure why. 

First there was two women, talking much too loudly about their marriages. One of them said: "I know, I just know that he gets off work early, but he's making something up, because he doesn't want to come home and play with the kids". After a while the other woman fishes out her phone and reads out loud a text message: "I'm thinking about you and I like you a lot. Basically I'm trying to say that I love you". The other woman sighs. 

Later, another two women enter and sit down at exactly the same table. They talk about random stuff, when suddenly a phone rings. One of them picks up. She listens for a while and says: "I think you made a mistake there... no... three plus five, take your time... that's it, there's your mistake... no sweetheart, you're not stupid... that's alright... don't worry, and call me again if anything else comes up". She hangs up and the other woman says: "You're a much better mother than I am".

A few minutes after that, a nice old couple comes in with their grand-daughter, a little girl, maybe eight years old. They talk about school, about subjects she does like and boys she don't. The girls says: "Grandma, can you buy me a drawing pad, I need one for school". "Of course", the woman says, "what kind of drawing pad?" "I don't know", says the girl. Grandpa says, "Well, do you know what size it should be?". And the girl goes: "Big enough to fit a giraffe!" 

I know, I went there to work on my translation, but somehow I ended up listening to other peoples' stories. Although I really didn't intend to. It's just, apparently people here seem to speak up a lot. Nothing much you can do about that, I guess. And first I was annoyed by the talking, tried to not listen to it, then I got fed up,  because it kept being there, and finally I layed down my pen and just listened to it. Not because it was interesting, but because it was inevitable.