"F*** off!"

The wierdest thing just happened to me.

This past week I have started going to a new café that we discovered last week when S was in town. I liked the place because it is in Covent Garden, about 5 minutes walking from my flat, has a good light food menu, good coffee, is relatively quiet, and is very clean (unlike most small London café's which are quite dingy, which I don't really mind but once in a while you actually would like to be able to touch the table without having to totally wipe it down first). In short, it was a perfect studying/reading spot, and I have gone there three days in a row to do work, extremely successfully. Although it is actually a French patisserie/café, the staff that works there are mostly Russian (not surprising in London). Anyway, yesterday I started to sense a bit of a mafia-type feel to the place. There is always this one (Russian) guy, who is obviously the owner or manager, sitting at a corner table, reading a paper, drinking a bottled beer and smoking, and throughout the evening he always has these random men come in, sit with him for a bit, talk, then leave. Sometimes they go to the back and the owner guy comes out alone, and then the other guy comes out much later. Anyway, it didn't bother me much cos all I'm doing is sitting and studying in a nice café and the guy was actually quite friendly to me - watching my books when I went to wash my hands, saying "see you tomorrow!" as I was leaving yesterday.

So anyway, I have been quite happy with my new discovery, which I decided I was going to share a long-term commitment with during my time in London. So today when two friends of mine and I wanted to go sit somewhere for coffee to study after class, I thought I'd show off my new fabulous spot. So we headed over to Covent Garden, settled in, and they loved the place. We sat reading for a while, drinking coffee and sharing a plate of French fries. Then suddenly one of girls stops our reading and 'fesses up to us that she met a guy recently that she is really interested in, and so, being girls in our twenties, we threw off our iPods and closed our books and she started to spill. Just as she was describing how he looks (i.e. the best part), I suddenly noticed that in the main part of the café the same Russian guy (who said hi to me as I came in) shut off all the lights. We were seated in an adjoining room, where the lights were still on, and other than us there was another table with a group of about five and a table with a couple (and the boyfriend had just gone down to the toilet). Suddenly the Russian guy comes in and is like "That's it, the shop is closed, fuck off, get out." We all looked at him in surprise, and I kind of half laughed thinking he was joking. But he was dead serious and again said "Fuck off, get out, you don't have to pay me just get the fuck out. We're closed. Fuck off." No explanation, no smile, in fact no expression whatsoever, just lots of "fuck offs"! He turned back and continued shutting down the coffee machines, etc. We all looked at each other and realized this guy was serious so started to put our jackets on in shock and make our way to the exit in dead silence - I think we were all too stunned (and not a little bit scared) to say anything to him! The girl whose boyfriend was in the bathroom was still inside as we were leaving and he goes back and said "I told you to fuck off and get out!" And she said "I'm waiting for my boyfriend, he's in the bathroom." And he said "Well tell him to fuck off. We're closed!" They leave and we see him lock the door and walk away.

And the more it sunk in, the wierder it all seemed. We suddenly realized: where had the two waitresses suddenly disappeared to? What the hell happened? He made us leave, without anyone paying! Even if there were some emergency, why not just say, "Sorry folks something has come up and we have to shut the place." Obviously there was no emergency in the place because he left right after us. And again, where had the waitresses gone?? They had just suddenly disappeared, and it all happened so fast. Is this not toally wierd? Why all the "fuck offs"...to patrons...people who you know are regulars?!? And now, what does this mean? I am inclined to just not go there anymore but, now I'm curious! Plus, my café! I like it! There is a salad on the menu I've been dying to try, and I still haven't tried any of their sweet crêpes!

What do you guys think happened, and do you think I should not go there anymore because of this? It's so wierd! I don't know if it comes off in this post as wierd as it really was, but man, I'm still a bit baffled by it all! I think in total he must have told us to "Fuck off" about 20 times, and it all happened in like a span of literally one minute - within 60 seconds we went from the middle of a girlie conversation about a boy to standing on the street in our coats.

Huh??