Update #5.1 - Life - Money = Happiness

Around mid-morning, Alan and I bid our kind Cincinatti hosts farewell and headed for Indianapolis. We had hoped to be on the road a little earlier perhaps, but as we knew we would be changing time zones during the day, we thought it might be a good time to catch up on some much needed rest. If there's one thing we've discovered, it's that this sort of work is absolutely exhausting; maybe not so much in a physical sense, but after dinner, Alan and I usually find ourselves so emotionally and mentally spent that we are quite ready to hit the sack. Now is such a time.

BUT, before I drift off into sleep (where that will be is yet to be determined), I wanted to tell you an experience or two from the day:

Our first stop was Indianapolis's Monument Circle and one of the two Starbucks located nearby. Inside, we were warmly greeted by two of the baristas who seemed to genuinely enjoy their job and the people that they came into contact with; in other words, they were good baristas. We sat down and began looking for ways to start a conversation, but it wasn't long before we found ourselves engaged first!

"So where you from?" one of the girls behind the counter asked us as she busily made the next person's latte.

"Birmingham, Alabama actually," we said. "Ha! I knew it! It was clear you weren't from around here, but I have family down in Alabama and my uncle is always getting on to me for talking like a Yankee, so I'm good at spotting Alabama accents."

"Well, you nailed it then. We're actually on a road trip up to Chicago testing a theory of ours. The theory is that coffeeshops are one of the only places left in the United States where you can get away with engaging complete strangers in conversation, and you're fitting in rather nicely with that theory right now."

All of this dialogue was taking place while she was busily attending to all the other customers that walked through the door, and believe me, this was one of the busiest Starbucks I have ever seen. Eventually we re-engaged the conversation and asked her "our question:"

"We've been asking everyone along the way a question and seeing what kind of answers we get. So, if you could tell us any one thing, what would it be? We've gotten some interesting answers." The barista behind her didn't hesitate: "The American vulture can vomit up to nine feet," (truthfully, I don't remember the type of vulture, but you get the point). While amusing and definitely one of our more "interesting" answers, he of course was not taking the question seriously at all; not a surprise, maybe, as many people simply don't want to engage on a more meaningful level and would simply like to keep the conversation light and superficial, and he seemed to fall into this category. Still, he was a nice enough guy and certainly introduced us to warm Indianapolis hospitality, which we would experience throughout the day.

Our female barista took the question more in the direction we wanted, though. "Let me think about it," she said, turning to deal with another customer. A few minutes later she handed us a cup with the formula Life - Money = Happiness written across the top - this seemed to be a recurring theme in our conversations.

"That's very interesting," Alan and I responded. "We actually took a homeless man to lunch yesterday who said almost exactly the same thing. He told us a story about how he had held two jobs, worked seventeen hours a day, had credit cards, and been able to buy anything he wanted, but then he threw it all to the wind because he didn't have time to think."

"Well it sounds like he might have been alot smarter than most people would give him credit for," she said. "Especially in today's economy where so many people find themselves hard pressed and out of work, I think alot of businessmen and working people are beginning to go home and discover that they actually enjoy spending time with their families more than they enjoy working sixteen hours a day. I mean, engaging with people is just so much more meaningful." We agreed and told her that this is part of the reason we were on this road trip.

Then the topic changed: "So what other responses have you gotten?" We told her about our waitress who told us not to baptize our neighbor's cat. "That was obviously a response from Alabama; or wait, maybe Kentucky?"

"It actually was Kentucky."

"Ha! See! I can nail these things! Well what else?"

Then we told her about Bruno who had told us that life was meaningless. "Wow, that's really dark," she said, clearly disappointed in this answer.

"Oh yes, and we told him we thought so. Because life is not meaningless at all, but is full of meaning! We had a very interesting conversation with him about his answer."

For whatever reason, the conversation froze up here. Of course, we wanted her to ask about the discussion, but she simply nodded and went on working. As it was very busy and all of this dialogue had come in phases, we thought it may simply have been because she was busy or because it was too noisy for her to hear us, so Alan tried repeating: "Yeah, I tell you what, that was an interesting conversation."

She looked up and said, "I bet," and then went back to work. It was far to busy at this point for us to really continue the conversation longer, and she had been given a good chance to bite and had not taken it, so we considered that the conversation must be over. We would have loved to have talked longer, as this was one of the most generally hospitable coffeeshops we had been in yet, but circumstances didn't seem to permit it. So we gave our new-found friend the blog address (are you reading this?), took our cup, thanked her for the conversation, and walked out into the city. It was time for somewhere different.

--Michael Taunton