The cariboo cafe

            I see the story The Cariboo Café as a story that has a very deep meaning, and at times can be confusing. What is confusing about this story is the jumps the story makes from paragraph to paragraph and also from section to section. The first section is about the struggle that these two kids have. A reoccurring item in the first section of the story is when the boy keeps saying coke. I think it’s hilarious that the only word in the English language this kid can say is coke. It’s very simple, yet special in a certain way.

            After learning about these two kids the story changes direction and we learn about the man who owns the café. There is a part of this section when the man describes the shop and he calls it the double zero café. I think that this has a connection to the very end of the story when he says that he will never let go of his son. My best interpretation of this is that zero is an important number, and calling the café the double zero café gives an equal sense of importance that both him and his son have.

            Aside from his son we also learn that the main character has an ex-wife who’s name is Nell. It almost seems that the main character is paralyzed without her. He can’t call the police with confidence because she was the one that always pressured him to do that. We don't know much about Nell other than what she did for the main character. I wonder what she was like. I feel like if I knew more about Nell then I wouldn't think that the main character was so superficial. He calls one of the kids that comes into his café a sweetheart without really knowing the kid at all.

There were a few great analogies in this story. I thought that between the three or four analogies I got a good sense for the message of the story.

“I think about moths and their stupidity. Always attracted by the light, they fly into fires, or singe their wings with the heat of the single bulb and fall on his desk writhing in pain.”

I like this quote because of what it means. It is a paradox. Moths are stupid because they fly into places with light that ends up hurting them, but they are doing what they want. A moth wants to get as close to the light as possible for warmth. It is sort of a smart, stupid way for the moth to get what it wants.