Cafe people: Angry phone lady

One of my regular cafés is a place called "Cosi's".  There are quite a few Cosi's in New York, but they seem to concentrate downtown where you get a lot of students.  I like Cosi's because you can order food and they bring it to your table like you are in a real restaurant.

If you go to a place often enough you begin to recognize certain people.  Some are just faces, while others are a bit more... eccentric.

Whenever I enter this café, I always see the same woman.  A middle-aged, heavy-set, black woman with a permanent scowl.  She stomps in carting a massive suitcase on wheels and maneuvers her way to a booth in the corner.  Once there, she heaves the suitcase onto the seat opposite her and sits down.  She grabs a coffee and then proceeds to mumble angrily into a headset phone.  For the entire day.

And when I say the entire day, I mean the entire day.

Now, there are days when I get to the café at 9am and don't leave until the late afternoon.  There are days when I don't leave until six or seven.  But this woman?  She's still there.  She's still talking into her headset phone, she's still looking angry, and that massive suitcase is still on the seat next to her.  I first thought she was some kind of homeless lady, but her clothes always look clean and she's not dirty or anything.  I've seen enough sleeping weirdos in cafés to tell the difference.

After three years of seeing her in action, I still wonder.  What the heck is she doing?  And why does she need so much stuff to do it with?  I suppose I could just walk up and ask her, but hey.  This is New York. You don't do that kind of thing.  Perhaps one day she'll end up in one of my games.  If so, you heard it here first.

-Dave