What happens when you steal drinks at Starbucks?

There is drama, there is Starbucks Drama and then there is .... D.R.A.M.A.

The drink stealers were in full effect Friday night - and one skinny girl in a blue tank top and greasy bangs learned the hard way that grabbing the first thing off the bar when it isn't your drink will lead to world of trouble.

Let's back up.

BlueBelle rolls up with her boyfriend, a khaki shorts and T-shirt type. They look like backpackers or students or tourists of some sort, with Teva sandals and hemp bracelets on the wrists. She's got tiny diamond studs in the ears but no other jewelry, not even a necklace.

They order ... I forget, but I think it was either a latte and a frappuccino or a macchiatto and a frappuccino. Something hot for her and something cold for him. That was BlueBelle and the BackPack Boyfriend.

Right in from them happened to be another couple, twenty-somethings dressed for a night on the town. Or maybe just on top of each other. It is so hard to tell nowadays.

The girl had on an off-the-shoulder white thing that was bedazzled in silver rhinestones to within a half-inch of its life. So was her purse. If Santa Ana's army broke through the courtyard from the Mexican restaurant next door, that blouse and skirt could have been used as a shield. She could probably have repelled bullets.

She is either having a bad day or a recovering addict in need of a caffeine fix to tide her over. She wants a caramel macchiatto with five shots and some extra caramel and then some extra whipped cream - just because.

Shielded Shelly moves down and stares at me and I stare back at her. The more I ponder it, her shirt is ugly, but I don't really care. The baristas are backed up, so her and the boyfriend go sit down.

Shelly's drinks - which happens to be similar to what BlueBelle ordered -come up. Entitled white people aren't good at paying attention - so BlueBelle snags them and goes to sit outside with the BackPacker Boyfriend.

Shielded Shelly comes back up to the counter about the time BlueBelle's drinks actually come out. The barista calls them and looks at her expectantly. She tilts her saucy nose in the air and goes "That ain't my draaynks."

The barista knows what's up and starts looking for BlueBelle, wondering if maybe they can get her before she starts drinking the drink.

No such luck.

BlueBelle and the BackPacker Boyfriend are outside. And Shielded Shelly goes "Look. There she is." And of course, two baristas, Shelly and the boyfriend and the three people sitting at the bar beside me all turn and stare.

Shelly is sipping this five-shot caramel whatever and  gets a look on her face like Socrates drinking the hemlock. It ain't her usual brew - five shots of anything will put a kick in the coffee - and she can't figure out what's wrong.

But the best is yet to come. Shielded Shelly decides to go outside and give her a piece of her mind. So she does.

She clips out and starts talking. BlueBelle rears her head back. Nostrils flare. She wrinkles her nose and starts to give Shelly the stink eye.

On the one hand, I'm praying that they throw down over a caramel macchiatto - on the other - I'm wondering exactly how I could go about getting video of this confrontation without being totally obvious about it. Before I decide, Shelly comes back in and says "She didn't like the drink, but I told her she took it, so she was going to drink it."

I laughed. She didn't come back inside and ask for another drink either ....

More bad fashion at Starbucks

I just witnessed the unholy marriage of a zebra and a giraffe, followed IMMEDIATELY thereafter by what I can only describe as an African violet mated with Godzilla.

The fashion possibilities of a Starbucks during the morning rush abound.

Let's take up the ze zeb-raffe first.

Stripes are slimming. Vertical stripes that is. I've never understood this fad for tropical fashion that is all the rage now - zebra, leopard, lion, Simba, etc.

A tall, tall and ridiculously thin woman - probably an ex-fashion model clicks into the Starbucks on three-inch heels, black and wearing a sleeveless grey and black zebra-print top with an elastic waistband (what would Tim Gunn say?) and a black pencil skirt. It is a LOT of look. She's got the hair styled in bangs and a severe sharp wedge that hits right below the jaw.

She's tall. The heels are redonkulous. It looks like a zebra and a giraffe had a baby. And named it Dacron Payless Pacsun Forever 21 the Third.

Now, back to African Violet Godzilla. She's a bathroom stealer this one - just peeking in to use the loo and ducking right back out. All the good tables were taken  when I came in, so I have a sight line to the bathrooms and witnessed this one first hand. At least the woman wearing the cropped sweat pants (yes) a half-hour later bought a drip coffee before staying in there for 15 minutes before I swear washing her hair.

Shrinking Violet peeks in the door. She's clad in a muumuu the likes of which old ladies favor.

The kind that could provide shelter for six kids, a picnic lunch and probably a puppy.

The chief decoration is a large peony in various places, but there's also an explosion, nay, a riot of flowers as if someone fed a box of Crayola through a wood chipper, threw the debris onto a sheet of linen and turned a blow-torch up to the max.

Cut a hole for the head, two for the arms and stick an old lady with a crew cut through. VOILA!

At least it was a bright spot .... very bright.

Lucite Lucy buys a Starbucks French Press

So, it is 9:30 p.m. and I'm in a creatively dry spell. I'm just about to play CoinDozer on my iPhone and get a refill when I hear it.

Click. Click. Click.

Louder.

Click. Click. Click.

Oh my god. I've never actually SEEN Lucite heels in the flesh before.

This woman has them on. She is actually wearing a pair of Lucite heels. Not tall ones, but at least an inch. And there's a big white flower on the toes. Those puppies must be a real pain to keep clean.

The rest of the ensemble isn't anything to write home about. A pale floral skirt that rides up far too high on her 50-year-old thighs, think Marimeko without the mari- or the -meko in green, orange and a putrid pink. There's a pink shell shirt and a white short-sleeve top. And she's got acres of glass beads on both wrists. The hair has been bleached to within an inch of its straw life.

She wants a coffeemaker - or I should say a French press. She clicks back and fort from the register to the shelf where the very few plunger style coffee pots are sitting in regal repose repeatedly.

Those heels echo loudly in the nearly empty store. Click.

Click.

Click.

"IS THIS ALL YOU HAVE?" she yelps out even though she's only five feet away.

Little Apron Aaron (it has been too long!) goes over and says "Yep, that's all we got."

Lucite Lucy clicks back over and unpacks two boxes to make sure they're identical, then makes Aaron repack the pieces from the one she wants into one box and the one she doesn't want into the other. And she busy a newspaper for them to "pack it." Cray-cray this lady be.

And just for good measure she orders a frappuccino.

Although she apparently isn't too crazy. She's sitting slurping her frappuccino and reading the comics. She was smart enough to get them to use the sports section to pack the French press. Maybe she's smarter than she looks ....

Ugly shoes at Starbucks: Farewell Glitterthong

It might be 105 degrees in the shade outside. It is about 70 degrees inside the Starbucks. There is another hooker - or wannabe hooker wearing a few strips of fabric and some ugly shoes - in here. I wonder if it is the antibiotics or her pimp's love that is keeping her warm at night?

She's got a friend talking animatedly about something.

Our currently lady of the evening - this Starbucks seems to be attracting them like moths to a flame, junkies to a free needle exchange, fat ladies to a bake sale or televangelists to pancake makeup.

She's wearing - if wearing is the right word to describe it - a piece of fabric draped over her top half. Imagine two table napkins sewed together at the corners only. Her head is stuck through the top - and the entire ensemble is tugged to the right, so one peaked corner is nestled under her left ear and the other is somewhere over her right shoulder.

As ugly as it is, that is more fabric than is in the other part of her body. There's a pair of shorts - if you can call them that. I think they're a children's size. Black. With buttons on the buttocks. They're so tight that the buttons look like they're about to go flying off. The napkin-shirt fabric hangs down over the length of the "shorts" in the front and the back.

The feet are wrapped in something equally atrocious. I got a shot off of these while she stood in line gabbling on her cell phone. I'm still not sure what these were.

These are all in black.


Let's take a crack at it.  Take a piece of construction paper about three inches wide, layer it with glue and dump two bottles of glitter on it. Repeat three or four times, depending on how much glitter you desire.  Add some brass buttons. Lay this on the foot from three inches above the ankle to a point just above the toes.

Add some leg warmers stretching around the ankles and going down just around the back of the heel ONLY. Now - you've only covered the top of the foot so far.

Lay down a piece of black plastic. Stick a piece of black plastic up between the big toe and the next toe and attach this to the glitter fabric.

Glitterthong, who's about the size of a pencil, orders a cup of water. Her friend, who's slightly larger, orders a tall skinny caramel macchiatto and a cup of water. What is it with the water? Does it have aphrodisiac properties that I'm not aware of?

They grab the comfy chairs near the door with a view of the sidewalk and any potential "customers" that might walk by and gabble for a while. Glitterthong crosses and uncrosses her legs for a while and the old men in the cafe get hotter than a 140 degree cappuccino. Not a chance old boys, not a chance.

A prospect must have walked by, because the next time I look up, they're gone.

Farewell Glitterthong, alas, I knew her, tinsel and tinfoil.

Sheriff Starbucks wonders "Where's My Whip?"

Sheriff Starbucks is having a bad night. There is a line of grumpy Europeans and screaming children out the door.

A row of drinks sits in silent shame. Venti double chocolate chocolatey chip frappuccino. Grande green tea frappuccino. Grande strawberries and cream frappuccino. Tall chai tea. Grande this. Venti extra foam that.

An enormous woman built like a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers and shepherding a small tyke with wire-frame glasses in front her her barrels through the door.

Linebacker is wearing a sweater vest the likes of which have never been seen before and which will never be seen since. Argyle, with a gray and robin's egg blue pattern with red borders. Now, picture this on a large, large, large woman. Impressive.

They want frappuccinos. Another grande double chocolate chocolatey chip for him and venti vanilla bean frappuccino for her.

Sheriff Starbucks whips out the frappuccinos and slams the lids down on the blenders. She's whirring through them in record time. There's only one problem.

Sheriff Starbucks looks up and moans, loudly, to the room. "WHERE'S MY WHIP!" - meaning of course, her can of whip cream, which was on the side counter by the ice bin.

She's completely unaware of the humor of this until both the other baristas behind the bar (and myself) burst out laughing.