This urn would've been sitting on a none-too-sturdy folding table, stained by years of holding up urns in equivalent situations, covered now by a pristine dryclean-only cloth hand-made in India and embroidered with Celtic designs and a big Om in the middle.

There'd be a line there, too -- a few sober folks looking for caffiene to keep them going through the night, not-so-sober folks looking for a change in experience, or trailing a friend, or simply thinking "hey, that's a good idea" and then forgetting what the line was for but having a fine old time anyway.

Cups were either in short supply or massively overpurchased -- there's never anything in between. Probably no sugar. There'd be a box of soy milk, and more already mixed in. Maybe some fruit scattered around, or arranged into an intricate mandala, following the patterns of the impromptu tablecloth that would surely never fully recover.

And so finally, having followed the smell -- cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and more much harder to identify from across the room, a melange of exotic goodness direct from some silk road bazaar -- having followed that smell, waited in line, conversed (if you can call it a conversation) with the skinny guy who had earlier tried to give me a six-inch redwood sapling with instructions to plant it somewhere unexpected ("the native plants can come back, man, they just need a little help") and telling two complete strangers that I have no idea where to get any "toast" (and also no idea what they were talking about, but I was still new then and I wasn't about to exhibit my complete uncoolness -- though I later learned it didn't mattter.)

After traversing the melange and the line with the trees and the "toast" (or lack of "toast") and my own perceived uncoolness, I finally got my first cup of good spicy nub chai.

And I remember it was so good, I immediately got into line again.

(originally written in a writing class, and then published at http://www.swinney.org/journals/article.phtml?id=3773)