Misfit Fittin' In

I’m sitting at Cilantro in Mohandiseen - an upscale coffee shop in an upscale area. Classier than a lot of coffee shops in the US – that I’ve been too at least. The atmosphere is serene, the clients polylingual and leather-clad. I keep waiting for them to discover that not only am I unclassy and poor, I’m wearing the only pants I currently own that fit me at all. But so far they’ve left me alone. Me – sporting my foreigner looks and silver laptop. Who knows how long I’ll make it through this masquerade.

I sat down at a table in the corner. I pulled the chair back and the corner of the leg yanked out a piece of faux-marble tile baseboard. I looked around. No one saw, at least, none of the Gucci-ed glitterati. So I carefully pushed the piece back in with my toe and tried to look nonchalant.

In some ways, this place is a great example of much of the “upscale” I’ve experienced here. It looks - and often is worth – a million bucks. But at the same time, there is a quiet desperation, a feeling that it wouldn’t take much for this to collapse into obscurity and ruin. I think it breeds a bit of a reckless abandon: go for broke, because it might not be around later anyway. Or maybe it allows one to be carefree: If it all falls apart, it’s okay because then we’re right back where we started.

Okay, that seems a bit overblown. The point is, upscale class here never feels like upscale class. Then again, I probably wouldn’t know upscale class if it daintily avoided me in the street.