Coffeehouse Chronicles …What’s In a Nick?

Whaddup, my fellow coffee drinkers?

Many times, I get queried about who is who. Some people come up and say to me, “Yo! Man, I love the Chronicles, but I get lost in some of the names. Where do the names come from?”

I have a straightforward answer to them: “If you aren’t a day one follower, you have to go back to day one.” Is that helpful? Probably not. Look, I’m sorry. People get ‘nicked’ based on the story, and that’s the funny part.

I’ll throw out a nick, and you'll try to tell me who it is. I’ll tell you how I came up with their handle. Some will be easy, some not so much. This’ll be fun.

Let’s go!

First things first. How did this all begin? Well, one day, our household coffeemaker broke, and if you know anything about us, it’s that we like to start the day over a cup o’Joe. Whatever we have happening in our lives, the Bosslady and I take the first few moments of the day and start it out, talking with each other about what we have planned for the day, what’s happening in our lives, and about what had happened the previous day that we found funny (usually just me) over some steaming brew. It’s our thing.

So, anyway, the coffeemaker broke, so I ran out to buy another one. It didn’t quite work out the way we’d expected, so I shared the hijinx. Thus, the Coffee Chronicles begat. Unfortunately for some of our friends, they got caught in the vortex of me. McCroc warns people, “Hey. Are you sure you want to do that? Someone is taking notes.” And he kind of jerks his head in my direction.

Rude.

I’ll start with a few softballs: The HB. The HB got her nickname because she’s who she is: the Head Barista. She keeps all things in the Coffeehouse running. She’s literally famous. I’ve been in a room with the HB, Randy Moss, and Marshall Faulk. She’s the one that folks flock to. People have elbowed past me to hug her.

My shoes and McCroc's shoes

Who’s McCroc? Cmdr McCroc is my bestie. Pals for …HOLY COW! Nearly forty years. Yup, we met back in the day. McCroc started as McDuck, because of his penchant to penny-pinch and store all of his cash in the extra bedroom of his house. He likes to go into that room, dive into his money, and do the backstroke. His ‘nick’ changed when I discovered that the real reason he saves money is to enhance the largest Croc collection in the Western World. He has more Crocs than Carter has peanuts. Truth be told, he only has one pair of Crocs, but he wears them everywhere. Please go back and read the story about him at the New Orleans Costco, and you will not be disappointed.

Then there’s Mrs. McCroc, recently redubbed as Mrs. Scrubbles. Of course, she was Mrs. McCroc because she was married to Cmdr. McCroc, and then I realized that she does not play when it comes to cleaning. Literally, it ain’t clean until she’s cleaned it not once, not twice, but thrice. She’s a regular Scrubbing Bubble, but that was too long, so I shortened it to Mrs. Scrubbles.

Just a few more, then today’s story.

Let’s see, we have the Mayor and the Doc. They started as the Francois, BUT their true colors came out! You see, we were all in Virginia at a campout, and we had come from the furthest to enjoy the festivities. This was evidenced by the matching shirts we wore, emblazoned with “California Love” on them. As we walked around, many people cheered, and the Mayor took this opportunity to kiss babies and shake hands with everyone that we passed. …and that is why she is The Mayor.

Mr. Francois got his name changed when he picked up a domino. We had ZERO idea how competitive Mr. Francois is when he plays dominoes. He is truly a different person, hence Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde—Doc for short.

One more couple: the Professor and Yoko Uno. The Professor was pretty easy. He worked—my bad, he works in higher education. He retired, got bored, and then went back to running the show at one of our Cal State Universities. It’s challenging to hold conversations with him. In years prior, he would howl like a wolf or coyote, but now he jumps in with “GO SPARTANS!” or “SPARTAN UP!”

Yoko got her nick from trying to break up the band. She is all about having the Professor all to herself. Every time the band wants to get together, she says, “We’ll catch up. I have a meeting.” or “the Professor has a meeting, we’ll meet you there,” or “Your internet sucks. We have to go to Camping World alone to get our Starlink, we’ll meet you there.”

We get it, Yoko. You don’t like us. Whatever.

This brings me to today’s Chronicles. Yesterday, we drove all the way into Portland—a two-hour drive up to watch the Da Coach hook up with all of his friends at Niketown. We picked up a few things with a swoosh on them, and the Da Coach made sure that we saw him hugging and high-fiving all the Nike associates.

Geez, Coach, we get it. You know people. Ugh. As if. Whatever.

Anyway, after shopping at the Nike Company store, we grabbed some food at the Prime Tap House. We sat at the table, trying to come to a decision on what we were going to do next (a major challenge with 12 people; I see how OJ got off now). Several different ideas were thrown against the wall to see what would stick: back to the RVs, ride the bikes around Portland, go check out the Pho place again, buy a new RV at RV Country (that one went down in flames pretty fast, pretty much a non-starter) …so anyway, the banter was going back and forth, let’s do this and let’s do that when a text came into the group text.

“I don’t care what these people do. We’re going this way. We’ll meet up with them later.”

Really Yoko?

Ya see what I mean? She’s always trying to break up the band!

Personally, I don’t think Yoko has a handle on this text thing yet. LOL!!!

Drink ‘em if you got ‘em!

#coffeehousechronicles