To Catch a Predator: Coffee Shop Edition

Do you ever see someone and know that they own a van with blacked out windows and an endless supply of twizzlers in the back? Well, I see about three a day. Sometimes more. Although, there is one person in particular. He is skeeviness personified and I often refer to him as the "man we will one day find out has bodies in his freezer." Everyone realizes there is something not quite right but he is a regular and for that reason we must be pleasant and hold conversation.

"How are you today, (I will refer to him as Creepy Coffee Man)?"

Now, Creepy Coffee Man has a voice that sounds like a mixture of Slingblade and Mr. Garrison from South Park. He never really makes eye contact and on the rare occasion he does, you're so freaked out, you feel like you've taken the red pill from the Matrix, and all you want to do is go back to your previous, simpler life.

CCM usually responds with one word only answers, such as "Alright," "Good," "Fine." All which seem to translate into ... I want to eat your face.

He orders the same thing every time, which is watered down coffee, in a mug he brought from his house, usually stained with wine, and then sits on the couch, and watches us. He occaisionally moves around from seat to seat, like he is in some strange one person game of musical chairs. He drinks his half-water coffee and makes sounds announcing he's about to go to the bathroom. Sounds, you ask...let me try to explain. SCHHEWWW. Yes, thats the sound. It haunts my dreams.

I know it may seem like I'm being awfully hard on CCM, but he is the most regular of creepy regulars. He comes everyday, with very gelled hair and moves from one piece of furniture to the next and ogles young girls. He is in a way as much a part of my store as any other object found in a coffee shop. Oh, there's the cups, there's the espresso machine, there's the muffins, there's CCM.

I pray daily that I'm wrong about him and that he does not Hannibal Lector people on the weekends, but just in case, I will continue to be nice to him, nice and completely detatched.

Because I don't want to take a ride in the van that he may or may not have because I really don't like the idea of being put in a freezer but am unsure if I have the willpower to say no to an endless supply of twizzlers.