I was meeting a former colleague for coffee at one of the coffeeshops in the city this evening after work. I hadn’t met this friend for a while but we had kept in touch and spoken to each other a lot over the last couple of years. So I said that I would be there around 8:30pm and headed for the venue after work. I arrived there first and ordered a crunchy, cold coffee and waited for my friend to reach.

Around the same time that I entered the coffeeshop, 3 girls and a guy had also stopped by to have a bite to eat and drink some cold drinks. I know exactly what they ordered and how much they enjoyed the food – not because I was  nosy! It’s because they were so fucking loud! And irritatingly so. My friend arrived and we both couldn’t at times keep a quite conversation going because of these 4. They were young, around early 20s or even 19 I guess. By their accents the 3 girls were American – two of them were of Indian origin and 1 was a Caucasian. The boy was almost certainly raised in India. And trying desperately to show off!

My friend and I know how much those 4 fought over the menu and that they changed their minds a couple of times after the orders were taken down. They made a lot of noise taking photos standing in different combination. I just wanted them to go away. Their food came and they ate. And they reordered and then ate again. My friend and I sipped out coffees without talking much. We would be drowned out by their yakking anyways, so why bother? And then….

The time came for them to pay their bill. So our boy here, his name is Emile, wanted to pay the entire amount and made an effort to showcase this fact. The noisy girls wanted to pay their own way or share in the bill and they kept telling ‘Emile’ not to pay the full amount. One of the girls went over to where he was standing with the waiter and telling him that she & the other girls would pay as well. Another girl kept saying ‘Emile, we are feminists!” as a way of explanation, announcing it to the entire cafe to emphasize the point! And they kept saying ‘Emile sit down’!

And this point my friend and I had had enough. So we chimed in loudly ‘Yes Emile please sit down!’. The kids were not expecting this and got a little flustered. Emile in particular. They could not wait to pay the bill and scamper away from the cafe. They were followed by giggling from the people sitting at two other tables and finally my friend and I could drink some coffee & relax and actually have a conversation where both of us could hear each other.