Professor

Professor Newman had regular habits. That's probably why he was a professor. There were many things that it was his job to do every day, and then there were a few that made his life worth living. He took a particular pleasure from attending to his correspondence at a coffee shop in a quiet side street of a small residential town adjacent to the university. Most patrons of this particular coffee shop were housewives and nannies who stopped by for a quiet lunch in each other's pleasant company and to reaffirm their strength and motivation before picking up their precious charges from the elementary school next door. "I come here to find my smile for the day," Professor had once heard someone say. Professor found that the sidelong glances that the housewives threw on the stack of folders and envelopes and foreign-language dictionaries on his table provided necessary motivation in his task as well. He would mutter to himself in German or French and thus try to feign complete absorption in reading. Every day, he needed this boost. He needed to say to himself, they think I'm so clever. Then he went back to his office, dropped off his mail on the desk of his graduate assistant for sorting, and went in to lecture the undergrads.