There are between three and four coffee places in town, depending on how you count them and if you exclude all convenience store and restaurant coffee. One is a to-go stand, one is a Starbucks inside a Safeway, and two are conventional coffeehouses. There’s one (“Perky’s”) in the downtown area that I like to go to, though I’m less than enthusiastic about the quality of their product and their hours. The other one (“University Cup”) is in a less interesting part of town, but I like the product an hours more. I frequent the latter.

Here’s the thing, though: the owner-operator of the University Cup has never been very nice to me. I could never figure out why, but I always got the impression that I was intruding every time I walked in. It was enough that, in other circumstances, I would have stopped going there altogether.

I think I’ve figured something out, though. I don’t think it’s that she doesn’t like me. I think it’s just that she is a rather unpleasant person. The story of how I came to this conclusion is too long for even HC standards, so I’ll spare it to you.

Anyhow, knowing that she’s simply unpleasant makes me less reluctant about going back.