…for characters level 3-5
The Doclopedia #3,526
Strange Shops: Friendly Tea Room
(A tip of the old bandana to Alan Portman for inspiring this theme.)
The Friendly Tea Room is located in Oakland, California, on Earth G-12, in the year 1929. It’s a nice little place on a quiet side street downtown, with a dozen tables and a very professional, yet friendly and casual, staff. They have a large selection of teas, pastries, and related items. They also seat strangers together with regular customers.
The big advantage to that is customers learn all sorts of things while chatting and enjoying their tea. We’re not talking about the latest local gossip or reviews of popular novels. No, people have come away with a working knowledge of advanced calculus, or defensive driving, or goat husbandry, or any number of other subjects.
The really strange things is that these topics are never actually discussed. So you might be chatting with a nice older couple about having native plants in your garden, but a few hours after you leave, you realize that you know how to write code using the latest language. Or you talk with a young lady about the good and bad of being pregnant, and the next day you’re halfway through repairing your roof when you wonder how you know what to do. There are probably hundreds of other cases. No customers seem to know how it works and the staff just smile and as which tea you’d like.
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