Sweet Doris

There's this lady. Her name is Doris. She's the first person I met here in FW. She has colored my whole view of the people here.

Doris runs a local coffee shop just south of downtown, in a developing neighborhood. It's called Gallery Art Cafe, kind of a catch-all coffee shop for diners, art patrons and bums like me looking for a place to do work with free Wi-Fi.

Doris co-owns the joint and works the register. The first time I came in, I told her I may make some strange requests because I was a recent Austin transplant and I wasn't sure of the small differences that might exist between coffee shops here and there (which was a nice way of saying that I figured a Fort Worth coffee shop might be unrefined and lacking in choices...I'm such a snob). I told her I wanted tea. "Hot tea?" she asked. I told her yes, and she said that I looked like a hot tea girl. I took that as a compliment, being that I'm a snob and all.

So Doris let me pick out my teabag and even let me have two for the price of one. A little later, she sat down at my table with me and asked me all about myself. I've never met a coffee shop owner - much less an employee - so sweet and genuinely interested in people.

Now, a week and three visits later, Doris has my self-designed business card and says she will do what she can to help me find a good job. I promised that if I got a freelance gig writing for the business publication here I would profile the Gallery Art Cafe. She hugged me.

Sweet Doris. Sweet Catholic Doris. I hope they make more like her around here.