I was shopping the other day. This was not abnormal.
Some would say that it is, in fact, my default state.
On that day, I was in Labyrinth, looking for nothing in particular. When one is attempting to single handedly keep a neighborhood game shop alive one cannot afford to be particular.
On that day, there was a couple seated at the chess table; they were reading the City Paper. We chatted about nothing in particular, his band, her photography, then I heard her sigh loudly.
“What?” I ask.
“This article. It’s about Hipsters.”
“So?”
“There aren’t any Hipsters in DC.”
“Sure there are.”
“No.” She pauses. “Not real ones, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“Real Hipsters are only found in a certain neighborhood in Brooklyn.”
I pause for a moment. Then I ask, “So you’re saying you knew about Hipsters before they became all mainstream?”
This is the point in the conversation when her eyes became murder slits and I grew silent. In an interesting contrast her boyfriend’s laugh echoed throughout the store.