Coupa Café on Ramona Street in downtown Palo Alto only has one wall of electrical outlets.
It also has 3 trillion customers per day.
The countless coffee-sippers and cookie-nibblers who find themselves banished to the tables in the center of the cafe sadly open their laptops, glance at the clock, and start counting down the minutes until their dear computer has trickled down to the final seconds of battery life.
The kings sitting at the tables against the Wall of Electricity sit comfortably, ordering latte after coffee, vegan brownie after oatmeal cookie. To snag a table against the Wall of Life is to remain there in luxury for hours, if not days.
The banished eye the kings with wistfulness, each of the forsaken pleading desperately with the fortunate in silence.
And when one of the lucky sitting alongside the Wall decides that he must return to his car, his children, his family, his job or his television, he slowly reaches for his computer cord, yanks it from the wall, and looks up to see five of the forsaken already at his side, their laptops clutched against their chests, their eyes wide with anticipation at his leaving.
He pushes past them to exit the cafe, and the four or five fight to the death for control of the Wall.
I sit with my book far from the battle. How silly of them, I think. They should do what I do when I want to work here with my laptop: arrive at Coupa Café 2 hours before opening, huddle in the chill and dream ahead of a day of free electrical usage, bathing in the glares of the forsaken who have arrived after me.
Picture credit: Palo Alto Online
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