Obviously, this did not include one-off moments of private personal anguish such as break-ups, rejection slips, or noticing that a now-retired neighbor read the part of your long-ago Yelp observation that his store was seldom open, due to illness, rather than the part about its having good deals on good stuff when it was open. This discussion was limited to the kind of dissatisfactions cafe customers generally have to be prepared to encounter.
There are moments behind the scenes...let's just say there's a reason why these books are displayed on the reading table.
There are moments of dissatisfaction, like realizing (if you still eat oatmeal) that they're out of your favorite flavor of oatmeal...you wanted the mad Moroccan spices, and you're going to have to settle for the red-white-and-blue-berry-flavored Patri-Oats.
There are times when people go in too late to ask for a fresh batch of Appalachian Morning coffee, which tends to move fast, and have to cut Jamaica Me Crazy (which is sweet) with decaf (which is bitter).
There are moments that stir up activists, such as realizing that, although a cafe that employs a gluten-sensitive baker gets full marks for offering gluten-free food options like oatmeal cups at any time of day, chocolate oatmeal "Cow Patties" cookies, or just the icing for a cupcake, or taco soup in winter, or salad in summer, these days all of those things are still likely to be contaminated with glyphosate. I ate taco soup last winter and didn't get sick, ate a Cow Patty last week and didn't get sick, but it still feels like gambling...I just give thanks that the cafe doesn't serve glyphosate-drenched Kona coffee. I can safely drink coffee here. So few things sold as food and drink these days are safe for me that people have expressed concern about my "having to live on weeds." Currently that would be fresh raspberries so I don't feel terribly deprived, and although the waistline reflects different levels of inflammation from day to day I'm still sitting on a nice cushion of honest flab...other years have been worse.
Most days, however, these things don't happen to anybody.
The saddest moment that regularly recurs at the cafe, if you think about it, is when you eat the last bite of your cookie (or whatever).
Another one would be too much. The portion you get was a generous amount for most people to eat at one sitting.
Although they're oatmeal-based cookies the Cow Patties are mostly chocolate fudge...a thin slab of nut-free fudge about as big as a man's hand.
The wheat-based cookies aren't quite so rich so they're even bigger. If you're enjoying a conversation you could probably make them last ten minutes or more.
The Fat Bottom Girls (high-frosted cupcakes with cheesecake underneath) turned out to be a little too much for some people. Customers now have to ask for the full original pile of frosting, because it seems that a lot of people can enjoy a fist-sized wad of frosting or a full-sized cupcake filled with cheesecake, but not both at the same time.
The Buckeye Brownies are double-wide brownies. (The buckeye, foreign readers, is a sort of inedible nut, which is usually bigger than a buck deer's eye but similar in its glossy brown color. It's not sphere-shaped; it has a flattened patch of lighter brown on one side. Though sometimes considered an emblem of Ohio it grows abundantly in Virginia too. The original "buckeye" candy was a ball of peanut butter fudge dipped in chocolate, with a patch of peanut butter fudge showing at the bottom. The Buckeye Brownies are just bricks of chocolate and peanut butter yumminess.) If not literally thick as bricks, they're certainly generous portions of rich cake. People might buy one to share, or wrap up half of one to take home and eat later.
Whole cakes on display tend to be baked in smaller pans than the standard nine-inch round layer cake pans used at home, but since each one has two layers with a thick mortar of penuche, or caramel, or ganache, between and on top of them, people know better than to try to eat a whole cake at once. You can have one boxed up to take home, or share one with friends in the cafe, or buy just a slice.
Winter soups, summer salads, and year-round sandwiches also tend to be generously portioned. (And I don't particularly want to mention the quiches, because after perfuming the cafe with onion and/or bacon the cook then fills the cafe with the smell of melting cheese, but yes, some people love those quiches.) The cafe is one of those eateries where nothing is cheap, but you do get your money's worth.
But now it's gone.
There's nothing to do about this. Your only recourse is to come back and buy another one tomorrow.
Sad...ish...isn't it?
May this be the saddest moment of your day, Gentle Readers.
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