I do this for the pun of it.
“My name? Oh, Skipper Brian, First name ‘Skipper’, last name ‘Brian’ and I’ll be your…”
“Skip, got it,” she said, casually ignoring my dramatics.
“It’s just that I’m an adventure guide on, oh, oh well,” I conceded. A coffee order doesn’t require an extensive backstory.
It’s hard to tell where the act ends and the actor begins when the role he plays is a wildly overclocked version of himself.
“Why did your voice change?” she asked, surprising me.
“I’m sorry?”
“You just had a strange accent, it was cute. Weird, but cute.”
“It’s my trans-Atlantic radio voice for work. You know, my mother always said I had a face for radio,” I said, snapping right back into it with a tried-and-true bit I always use when people ask. "I tend to take my work home with me. Or my life to work. I do something."
“Stop it, I like it. You sound European.”
“Madame, I assure you, I am not, ‘a-peeing’, this is a fine, upstanding establishment.”
We both laughed at that one. If you can’t laugh at yourself…
“Well, enjoy your adventures, Skip.”
“It’s Skipper…you know what, never mind, thank you so much.”
I left the coffee shop with my White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino, the most dramatic of drinks, in hand, the next "act" of my day about to begin.
“Alright, what’s your story?” she said, apparently beginning a smoke break near my car.
“Oh, I’m just a local actor who can’t quite…”
“No.”
“No. Take me to Europe. Or somewhere equally exotic.”
“Wait, what…oh, OF COURSE, yes indeed. You know, the last time I had a coffee this good, I was backpacking through the lush jungle of the Congo, with nothing but a machete and a one-eyed ostrich named Beauregard. We stopped at a small village where we were served the local ceremonially beverage. Well, I convinced myself it was coffee, in the least. Beauregard had none.”
“Wow, what an adventure,” she said with a grin.
“That’s life, take the adventure with you or live the fantasy of reality.”
“Thanks, Skipper.”
In the end, it turned out that not all fantasy stories are made up; unless they are.