2019-09-27 - Waffle Shoppe or Sniffle Shoppe?

Looking like death warmed over, Greg shuffles into The Waffle Shoppe. He seats himself at the bar and orders a cup of coffee, but no food, although he does keep studying a menu like he's not quite sure. "Fuck, I feel like shit," he tells whoever might be around to hear. It's important to be social.

Daisy is sprawled in a booth nearby, her feet up in the seat across from her, a menu propped up in front of her, but she already has a cup of coffee that is steaming on the table, doctored up with enough sugar to sink a ship. When she sees Greg from around her menu she says, "What happened to /you/?" Both brows raise a little bit as she looks him over.

Clarissa looks like she'd rather be anywhere else, but a quick look down to her phone confirms that this place gets excellent yelp reviews...another quick look around then back to the phone. And none of the account seem fake. With a sigh she moves more into the place, expensive heels clicking against the floor and vintage Hermes handbag hanging from the crook of her arm. "Excuse me," she says to Greg since he has a menu, "Is there anything gluten free on there?"

Greg looks over at Daisy, his typical grin conspicuously and completely absent. "Damn yo, I feel like shit," he complains. "I think I'm coming down with something for real." His coffee arrives and he sets down the menu to pick up the mug and wrap both hands around it. He looks up at Clarissa and blinks. "Gluten? Isn't that a conspiracy? Like flat earth or the Illuminati, right?"

Daisy wrinkles her nose at Greg and makes the sign of the cross with two fingers, giving a little hiss to go along with it. "You're supposed to stay home when you're coming down with shit, man, not come out and spread it around to everyone like Typhoid Mary." She glances over at Clarissa and looks her up and down before giving a little snort at the question. "Pretty sure they have like, fruit and yogurt or something. I think you took a wrong turn at Hollywood and Vine. You might want to check out Patisserie Vydal. I'm sure he's got something very expensive and very gluten free there."

Clarissa looks a tad indignant that Greg would say something like that, "Gluten intolerance is an actual medical condition. All the rest of that," she flicks fingers away from her dismissively, "Is illness of a mental variety." she sniffs and then produces a linen handkerchief that is delicately embroidered, wiping her nose daintily with it, "Do you mean that summer cold that's going around?" She asks Daisy, "Seems like everyone has something these days." Including her! "Trust me I'd rather be somewhere more...upscale, but yelp suggested this as one of the best places in town." She sounds doubtful as she again looks around, "Is it Greek yogurt?" she could ask someone that actually works here, but that might take effort and they're both right there.

"Can't afford to stay home," Greg complains miserably. His grin very nearly returns as he looks up at Clarissa, clutching his coffee. "No shit," he says in a tone of disbelief, shaking his head. "I swear to God I thought the whole thing was some kind of fuckin' twacked anti-vaxxer horse shit." He shakes his head in wonderment bordering on bafflement. "What a fuckin' world we live in. Tell you what, is there pill you can take for that? The gluten thing? I'll get you some for a modest fee."

"No idea," Daisy says when Clarissa asks if it's greek yogurt. "Menu doesn't say, so I'm guessing no." She takes another sip from her mug of coffee as she watches the interaction between Clarissa and Greg. When the waitress comes by, she orders herself two sides of bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese, and a belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream on top. She must have a hollow leg, because she certainly doesn't look like she could put away that much food.

Clarissa grimaces and sits down across from Greg without asking, arranging her purse then her hair as she reaches for a menu, "There isn't," she looks over her menu at him like she's just now recognizing him since he mentioned medication, "You work at that shop in town. Kevin?" When Daisy orders all that food an eyebrow goes up. She clicks her tongue and says, "Watch out, that metabolism stalls out around twenty six," her tone is very prim, like some kind of condescending grandmother.

Greg grins now, raw and genuine amusement. "That's me, Kevin Greenleaf. I just work there, though. The owner beats me, but he gives me that good D, so I stay." Greg shrugs, affecting contentment with Kevin's lot. "There's not a lot there emotionally, you know? But it's just a pure animal lust." He shifts an eye towards Daisy, drawing her into the joke. "You know what I'm talking about, right, Casey?"

Daisy smirks at Clarissa when the unsolicited advice comes, but "Kevin's" story draws an amused snort from her. Her smile twists a little bit and she lifts her coffee, taking a swallow before saying, "I like it when he gets a little rough. Keeps things interesting." She toys a ltitle bit with the spoon in her cup, "Besides, you two are hot together. Who needs to fuck that up with emotions?"

Clarissa blinks when Greg says that the owner beats him and clearly misunderstands what he's saying at first, "As long as you have a prescription I don't see why..." she starts to say, before that second bit comes up and then Daisy is adding to it. A slow flush rises in her face and she purses her lips, "Ah, I see. Well, that's hardly talk for a restaurant and the yelp reviews didn't mention the sort of customer this place attracts. I'll be sure to mention that in my review. And as I do fill prescriptions at your place of employment, perhaps I will move my business to the other shop in town."

Greg laughs softly. "I was just messing with you. Because I'm the owner... and my name's Greg, not Kevin." He shrugs, with a helpless expression. "I'm kind of an idiot. But our medicine is serious as fuck." He flashes his best salesman's smile, despite himself. "I remember you... you're a pretty fuckin' serious person, huh?" He tilts his head to the side with honest curiosity as he examines her, like a strange plant or an oddly-colored bird. "The thing about me is that like 10% of what I say is ever serious. That last bit was the 10% for this conversation." He looks over at Daisy again, still just holding onto that coffee for warmth. "I torment Daisy with this shit all day, so consider yourself lucky -- you only have to put up with me for brief spats."

"Aw fuck, man, you weren't supposed to tell her my name," Daisy mock-complains as she blows a straw-wrapper off the end of a straw which flies across the short distance to the counter and pings off of Greg's arm, landing on the counter next to him. But then she's grinning in delight as her plate of bacon and her waffle and her eggs all arrive and are set out before her like some kind of Dionysian festival of gluttony. She grabs a piece of bacon between her fingers and takes a bite off of it before saying, "And he does, torment me. And like, not in the good BDSM sort of way, but more in the really bad jokes he thinks are funny sort of way."

Clarissa leans back in her seat, expression a touch sour at the confession, "I just don't enjoy my time wasted," when a server comes by she orders a bowl of plain yogurt and half a grapefruit. Plain coffee, black. "I'm Clarissa Robbins," her tone indicates she expects them to recognize the name, "And I have to say that BDSM doesn't normally come up in usual conversation. At least the ones I have."

"That's super unfortunate, Clarissa," Greg returns, finally taking a sip from his coffee.. which he slurps with relish. "I think you might be moving in the wrong circles, girl. Life is fun out here... you should get a little of it for yourself before you're all done." He shrugs, plastering on his best reasonable expression. "I don't know what you believe about religion or whatever, but however you want to look at it, you're only going to be Clarissa, in this place and time, once. Are you going to be able to look back on it and be satisfied that you were as Clarissa as you could possibly be?" He leans back, brandishing his coffee mug pointedly. "Because I can tell you girl, I'm Greg as fuck... ain't nobody Greg harder than I do, yo."

"Clearly you need to have more fun conversations," Daisy opines to Clarissa, clearly having no idea who she is. The name registers absolutely no recognition on her features. "Nice to meet you, Clarissa Robbins," she offers anyway, mercifully silencing herself by digging into her eggs before they get cold. She then leans a little bit in her booth in Greg and Clarissa's direction to aside to Clarissa, "And nobody would really want to, either, but let the man have his illusions." She winks, then, and goes back to eating her eggs before they get cold. She's seated in a booth across from the counter where Greg and Clarissa are.

The front door swings open and a brief zephyr of crisp September air kicks up napkins and shirt tails for just a second before Andy scurries in out of the miserable drizzle, sighs at the warmth of the cafe, takes a deep breath and then explodes with a earsplitting sneeze. Fortunately he brings up his arm in time to catch it. When it seems a second isn't coming he pulls his arm away enough to look at the jacket, grimaces and makes his way further into the room. As do many these days he doesn't look so hot. Eyes and nose red, very much in need of a good night's sleep. He pulls his jacket off, revealing what's gotta be a Target brand button up and a pair of red suspendies, and turns the arms inside out before tossing it up onto the communal coatrack before heading over to the counter. Before sitting or placing an order he rolls his left arm sleeve up, pulls off the nicotine patch on the inside of his forearm and replaces it with another. "Ugh."

"I'm relatively certain that no one else could do Clarissa Robbins justice," The woman in designer everything says dryly, "But that's neither here not th--ther--" she pauses, looking a little confused then sneezes into the crook of her arm not once, not twice, but six times in a row, all tiny, little, dainty sneezes. Like a kitten. She fumbles in her bag for that handkerchief again and dabs at her nose, "Maybe I should have just gotten the chicken soup." She glances over when Andy comes in and grimaces, "This whole town really is sick. But I assure you, Mister Greg, Miss Daisy, that my conversations are quite fun and often riveting. Just this morning I was discussing the introduction of the fish fork into the proper English table setting."

Greg blinks. "See, right there? That's the kind of thing that could make someone fall asleep. What the shit is a fish fork?" He squints in disbelief, shaking his head, and takes a long and noisy drink from his coffee as he watches Andy's entrance. "Ugh is right, dude," he agrees, and he rubs at the bridge of his nose like he's wrestling with a headache. He glances over to Daisy. "Yo... I don't want to look like a dipshit. You think she means a trident, like fuckin' Aquaman or some shit?" He ponders for a moment, shaking his head doubtfully. "I don't think tridents are English though, are they? Maybe, uh... Chinese?"

"Christ, is everyone in this place carrying the plague?" Daisy asks, scooting even further back into the corner of her booth, away from all the sneezing people at the counter. She at least doesn't make the sign of the cross and hiss at them again. Yet. Instead, she digs into her waffle with the strawberries and whipped cream on top. She has a truly impressive mountain of food in front of her for someone of her size. Though, the eggs have vanished, and only the two sides of bacon and waffle remain. When Clarissa informs them of the depth of the fun and riveting nature of her conversations, Daisy just kind of stares at her, piece of bacon halfway to her lips. She opens her mouth, then shakes her head, and shuts it. Nope. Not even gonna comment. Instead, she takes a moment to look Andy over, "Quitting's a bitch, man. Good for you." When Greg turns to her to ask her what a fish fork is, she gives him a shrug. Hell if she knows.

"Soup. I was told your chicken noodle soup was the best Gray Harbor had to offer." After placing his order Andy looks back to the others. "Missus Robbins, I am absolutely going to need to hear more about this fish fork. But first you're going to have to give me a moment to tighten my shoelaces, lest you knock my socks off with this story." He drops into a seat at the counter and goes into an immediate slouch. "Whoever gave this to me is a bad person." To Daisy he says, "It's been a couple of months since my last cigarette, but I'll tell you what, I don't know what I'll do when it comes time to quit the patch."

"It's actually quite interesting, but I can see this isn't the sort of audience that would appreciate such a thing," Clarissa says airily, or as airily as one can when they're trying to make sure their nose isn't running. "The history of the fork in general is...also probably something none of you are interested in." Heathens. Her yogurt and fruit arrive and she picks up her spoon, gives it a quick inspection, then deems it worthy of eating with since she takes a bite.

Greg gives an airy shrug with his coffee. "I don't know forks from forks," he admits, "but I could talk marijuana strains all day, so I guess to each their own." He slurps his coffee down loudly, sets down the empty cup, and starts fiddling with his wallet. "Ugh. I want to go to bed, but I need to check on my shop." His tone suggests this is the last thing he wants to do as he produces a five dollar bill and sets it on the counter, standing up. "Well folks, it's been real," he offers to the general audience. "Be good or be good at it."

Daisy opens her mouth to answer Andy and for a moment, there's a mischievous look in her eyes like whatever is about to come out is going to be highly inappropriate, but then she pauses, and says, "Maybe gum once in a while? Til you can drop that too." That was totally not what she was going to say at first. Maybe the eggs have some weird censoring power over her. She lifts a strawberry from off the top of her waffle and pops it in her mouth. When Greg gets up she watches him with a bit of a squint, "Why don't you just go crash? I can check on it for you on the way home."

"All I know about forks is that they called it the Italian perversion when they added a third tine because they were concerned it was offensive to god." Andy shakes his head, like what a bunch of doofuses. "Though I'd hazard to guess that a fish fork is for eating fish. Did they add it to the English place setting when the English discovered fish? That would make sense." Andy's soup shows up and he leans in to inhale slowly. "There we go. Whoo." At Daisy's comment he pulls a face. "Have you ever tried the gum? You chew it, stow it in a cheek for three minutes, chew it again, put it in the other cheek. That's a lot of goddam timing to be worrying about. And on top of that it makes your whole mouth numb."

Tyler wanders into the Waffle Shop, running his hand through his spikey hair as he glances around. He's wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and a blue shirt with the Gray Harbor Fire Department shield over one breast, having just finished a shift. Tired, he wanders over to a stool and flops down, ordering a Diet Coke and sighing.

"Feel better, Mister Greg," Clarissa offers a brief wave of her fingers in his general direction before having another bite of yogurt and stealing a few longing looks at Daisy's spread. Tyler gets a look as he comes in, but mostly her attention is on the conversation at hand, "Id be happy to talk to you about it if you're actually interested, Sargent," she says to Andy, picking out the raspberries and setting them neatly to the side on a napkin, "But I have this nagging suspicion everyone is just humoring me for their own amusement right now."

Greg pauses to consider Daisy's offer. "Weeeelll..." he says doubtfully. "I have to meet a regular," he says, and then Clarissa calls Andy 'sergeant' and Greg's head snaps around, suddenly alert. "Oh, and I just found out I need to be literally anywhere else." He walks over to the end of the counter to reach behind it and grab his backpack, unclipping his skateboard from it before shrugging into the straps. "Catch up with me later, girl," he calls to Daisy before he ducks out the door, dropping his board onto the sidewalk and jumping on to glide out of sight.

Daisy shakes her head and says, "I don't smoke, but my cousin quit not too long ago. He was a raging asshole for a while while his lungs hacked out all the shit in them." She glances over toward Tyler as he comes in and plops himself down. "Rough shift?" she asks, noticing the GHFD log on his shirt. The waffle is eaten slowly now that she's not as concerned about things cooling. The whole story of the fork gains a slightly raised eyebrow and little more. Sergeant. Huh. She almost laughs when Greg suddenly takes off like a shot, shaking her head. "Yeah, sure man. Catch you later," she calls after him, but he is already gone baby gone.

Andy watches as Greg goes and gives a snort, looking to Clarissa. "Well, there you go Missus Robbins. You and the suburban gangsta have something in common. Maybe the two of you should get together and talk about ways to improve the police department." When Tyler enters he offers his fellow first responder a nod before sampling his soup, nodding in approval and tucking in.

Tyler catches the nod from Andy, and he smiles, giving a little awkward wave. "Hey, Sarge," he offers the man. "You missed out today. We had a pretty good wreck down on Main." He smiles, feigning excitement a bit, "Got to break out the old jaws o life," and he laughs a little. "You doin' alright?" To Daisy, he offers that same charming, dimply smile. "Not too bad. Just long. I'm Tyler," he introduces himself, since she's clearly a friend of the cop.

"Maybe your superiors should start taking my complaints seriously," Clarissa replies to Andy with another sniff and dainty wipe of her reddening nose. "I don't know why anyone in this day and age would choose to start smoking. While I applaud your decision to quit, it does make me question your decision making in the first place. Then again you chose a career with the police force so you must like living on the edge. Behind a desk," her voice doesn't exactly drip with derision, but it's close. When Tyler introduces himself she of course assumes it's to her, the most important person in the room. "Clarissa Robbins. Was everyone all right?"

"Daisy," she introduces herself to Tyler, clearly not really minding anyone knowing her name, despite her protestations to Greg earlier for giving her away. "Everyone walk away from that wreck?" she asks, idly curious, because busting out the jaws of life sounds like things were a bit more hairy than a simple fender bender. She glances over at Clarissa and just kind of studies her, much like Greg had earlier, like she's some kind of oddly colored bird or exotic plant.

Andy grimaces at Tyler's story. "Sounds like a good day to miss work. I think I'll be missing tomorrow, too, if this damn flu doesn't clear up." He spoons up some more chicken noodle soup before saying, "This might help, but there's only so much soup can do for a man." He eyes Clarissa, but doesn't respond to her goading. For now!

When Clarissa thinks Tyler was introducing himself to her, he glances her way and laughs a little, "Hi Clarissa. You're... You look familiar. You're like, on the library board or something aren't you?" To Daisy, he nods, "I think we were in school together, but you were a year or two behind me. I dig the hair. That color's great." He nods, "They were roughed up, but they'll live, I imagine." He nods about the sickness, "It's goin' around. Perkins was out all week with it. Hope you feel better, man."

Clarissa lets out another sneeze that she barely catches in the crook of her arm, pushing her finished bowl away from her and saying in a thick voice to Tyler, "I chair Gray Harbor's historical society so yes, I'm often at the library," she looks like she'd say more but then her phone rings and she pulls it out with a sigh, "Michael, if you're calling about anything other than a cure for the common cold you're fired."

"Yeah, we were," Daisy says when Tyler mentions that they went to school together. She's a little bit younger than him, but not by too much. She flashes him a smile and says, "Thanks. I like yours, too." She gestures to his spiky do before finishing off more of her waffle. Around the mouthful she says, "Glad to hear they're gonna be alright." She picks up a menu, props it open, and sets it up on the end of her booth pointed toward the plaguebearers like a sneezeguard at a buffet table.

Andy clambers to his feet and waves down the server behind the counter. "I'll take a quart of this stuff to go. If this won't do the trick maybe I'll just lay down and die." He brings up his arm just in time to catch a wracking cough which just goes on and on. This leads the server to getting him his soup as quickly as possible so as to hurry him out the door. When he goes to pay he gets himself a blue discount and, not in a mood to argue in favor of equal treatment, accepts it with thanks and starts for the door. Daisy and Tyler get a wave, though he stops by Clarissa and says, "Feel free to stop by if you would like to lodge further complaints, Missus Robbins. I'll find someone who isn't exhausted of talking to you yet!"

Tyler nods a farewell to Andy. "Oh, yeah, that's it," he offers to Clarissa. "Sorry. I'm, you know... Politics aren't really my thing, I guess." His drink arrives, and he takes a good slurp of it. "Really?" he responds to the compliment of his hair. "Heh, thanks." He smiles, and runs his hand through it absently. "So, she's a historian, I fight fires... What do you do, Daisy?"

"Actually, there's something I need some assistance with," Clarissa sets some money down on the table and stands up, saying irritably into her phone, "Not from you, Michael. For an assistant you're very bad at actually providing assistance with anything except raising my blood pressure." She then gestures irritably to Andy like, go hold the door, cop! "It was nice to meet you, Miss Daisy, Mister Tyler."

Daisy lifts a hand to wave to Andy as he goes to depart, and then to Clarissa as well as she follows suit. With the two of them gone, she glances back over toward the firefighter and says, "Yeah, really. It looks good on you." She seems genuine, anyway. It's pretty easy to tell when she's being a brat. When Tyler asks what she does, though, she laughs a bit and says, "I skate. And I torment Greg and Grant over at Green Harbor." The dispensary.

Tyler shakes his head a little, "Green Harbor. Is that like, a skate park?" He shrugs, "I don't know where that is." His waffle arrives, a pecan one, and he lathers it in too much syrup before taking a bite, offering a friendly wave to the departing Clarissa. He speaks with his mouth full, not really schooled in manners. "Greg and Grant? Friends of yours, I guess?"

"Well, yeah, there's a skate park there, but it's also Greg's dispensary," Daisy says as she chews on a piece of bacon, not seeming any more schooled in manners than he is, at least not when it comes to talking around her food. "Yeah. Greg owns the skate park and dispensary. Grant's an artist. Buddies of mine. You skate?"

"Dispensary," repeats Tyler. "I don't know what that is." He shakes his head a little, "I can. I don't. No time really. When I have time, I'd rather be surfing, so I head to the other side of the harbor to catch waves as much as I can. It's basically... water skating..." He rolls his eyes then, realizing just how stupid that sounded.

"Pot shop," Daisy clarifies when Tyler doesn't seem to be familiar with the term. "Hey, nothing wrong with surfing. It's kind of like skating, yeah." She grins a little bit and says, "I should learn how to surf sometime," idly musing as she picks up another piece of bacon. She has two full orders there that she's working through.

Tyler's eyes widen just a little, chin lifting. "A... pot shop." He nods finally, "Oh." Even with it being legal, as a fireman, it's a no go if he likes his job. "Right. Yeah. Not really my thing. Sorry." He shrugs, and then offers with a grin, "My folks sold meth." Apparently, that's similar, right? "It's not hard if you skate. I'd be happy to teach you some time."

Daisy shrugs her shoulders and says, "No worries. It's not everyone's thing. Don't worry, I'm not going to like, call you a square or anything like that." She gestures at him a bit with the bacon before she takes another bite from it. When he mentions that his parents sold meth, her eyes widen a little, "Oh, shit man, sorry to hear that. That's rough." Because meth is bad news. Then she looks surprised, "You'd teach me? Really?"

"Yeah. That's prolly why I don't really do any of that stuff," Tyler shares. "I can't stop biting my nails. I don't need to be trying to stop doing drugs, too." He nods, "Yeah, absolutely. To be honest, I don't have anyone to surf with. It'd be fun." He grabs the nearest napkin and a pen from his pocket, "Here." He writes his number down. "If I don't answer, you can also reach me at 911." Grin.

"Yeah, probably a good idea not to, especially if you've got a predisposition for that kinda thing," Daisy says with a nod of her head. Look at her, using words with more than three syllables. She grins brightly then, "Alright. We can totally be surf buddies." She gets up and braves getting near the plague counter just long enough to grab the napkin with his number on it. She laughs then and says, "Man, I have yet to have a run in with the cops. I'm not going to start by calling them up to ask if the cute boy I saw at the waffle house is on shift or not." She falls back into her seat then and takes another sip of her now-cold coffee, making a pinched face. "Oh god.. why, why did I just do that?"

Tyler smirks, and notes, "You do realize, Andy's not a boy. He's like, 35 or something. He's like, pretty high up on the force." He matches her wince, "Oh, gross. Cold? That's the worst. Here's my secret to good coffee. Ready?" He leans in close, and whispers coyly, "Drink iced coffee. It starts gross, so you're never caught off guard by it being not being hot."

"I was talking about you," Daisy says with a smirk after she recovers from the stale coffee. She raises both brows when he leans over and whispers his secret to coffee. She laughs then and shakes her head. "Yeah, yeah. Very funny." But she is smiling. She flags down a server and pleads for a refill, which she is granted, with hot coffee, that gets a pile of sugar dumped in it, as well as some cream.

Tyler is a little surprised, but he smiles just the same. "Oh. Then, I guess... thanks?" He grins for a moment, enjoying the compliment and avoiding saying anything to ruin it. Finally, he notes about her fresh coffee, "Ugh. That smells wonderful. I can't do it though. I need to get home and sleep. Some days you do these 12 hour shifts and you sit around the whole time at the station napping and eating animal crackers. Other days, like today, it's just a lotta work." He notes the time on the clock on the wall, and he quickly finishes up his waffle.

"Napping and animal crackers sounds a lot like a good day at work for me, too," Daisy says, though she has never said if she even works, which is possibly doubtful. She glances over at the clock and says, "Well, it was nice to meet you Tyler. I look forward to those surfing lessons sometime soon. Get some rest. You earned it." She gives him a peace sign and then finishes up the rest of her bacon, and then her coffee, fishing out her wallet to pay her tab.

Tyler pays his own bill, and he rises to his feet. "Nice to meet you as well Daisy. Or I guess, meet you again, kind of." He offers her a smile, "You're gonna love surfing. I promise." He knocks his knuckle on the table twice, and then says, "See ya, Dais." And with that, he heads for the door.