I am back in my corner at the Little Café Near Home, my steaming mug of tea close at hand. I am perched significantly higher than I was before; the Chairs of Death are gone, made up for with a rearrangement of the booth seats, which have been given stilts to accommodate now-taller tables. Some floor space was lost to the stairs; where there used to be six small tables now there are five. The tables are taller than they used to be, however, so the reduced seating is made up for by accommodating more standing. I have not ventured into the mysterious downstairs yet, but since the toilets are down there, it’s only a matter of time.
Overall, the place feels a little less café-like, and a little more bar-like. It will be more difficult to drag tables together to suit whatever conversational groups emerge. Perhaps new taller chairs simply haven’t arrived yet. The biggest losers might the canine regulars — sitting way up here, I can no longer reach down and idly scritch a dog noggin while pondering the next paragraph. As I type this the owner’s jack russell terrier is trying to figure out what to do about the situation.
A question for the philosophers among you: If a little café changes owners, then changes its name (not really sure what it was before, but it wasn’t that), gradually turns over all the employees, changes the beers on tap, and is then remodeled, is it the same little café?
Thus the world races on; the only constant is change. I sit, perched up high, rotated ninety degrees, and I know I must adapt or be left behind.
