The Great Pastry Debate of 2009

God save us from old ladies. No sooner had I written the intro to the PREVIOUS blog about old people than a crowd (well, a trio) of old ladies rolled in. That's right, real, live WOACAs in the flesh. I love the smell of Shalimar in the morning!

The outfits alone do these old ladies proud. All they were missing were red hats. And I bet they have those at home!

#1. Green capris, white top and black ballet flats. I understand comfort. But I thought style was forever? Obviously Coco Chanel never got around to these old birds!
#2. Hideously ugly maroon pants, pink shirt and a matching jacket in a cabbage rose pattern. She did have on some banging pink and gold sunglasses though. The outfit was ugly, but I bet she dropped a grand on it somewhere. And another grand on the shades.

#3. A lime green pantsuit. LIME GREEN. What is it with old ladies wanting to look like fruits? Do they not grow enough in their gardens? Of course, none of these three had ever gotten closer to fruit than the produce aisle at a Publix. They never gardened. They got manicures, not manure-icures!

So, I'm tap-tapping away, because the mood is good and the coffee is being ground and the music is rocking and I'm on a sugar and caffeine high and I'm just ROLLING with the creativity.

And the Old Lady Kingston Trio sashays through. They detour around the Starbucks Via display and Cabbage Rose sees my computer and decides to stop in the middle of Starbucks and tell me "That's a nice computer there!"

Uh. OK. Thank you. Whatever old girl. I thank her. Because, you know, I'm tweeting about you at THAT VERY SECOND. Cabbage Rose decides that obviously, I'm in a talkative mood, and willing to listen to her ramble on about how she has not one, not two, but THREE Apple computers, complete with the ginormous 24-inch screens and she also has a laptop that she and her husband take on cruises and safaris. (Because when I go to Africa, I pack the dysentery drugs, the bug spray and the MacBook?)

Shortly after, the Great Pastry Debate of 2009 begins.

I'm Tweeting this fun, about meeting Cabbage Rose in the middle of Starbucks, when I realize that there is something extraordinary going on in front of the pastry case.

The conversation flutters back - all three of them peppering Super Cindy with questions. She's taking it like a pro - obviously mobile and wrinkled flesh containers are nothing new to her.

How many calories in this? What about the muffin? What about the cake? What if we got the donut and a frappuccino? THEN YOU NEED TO SEE A DENTIST!

How many calories are in the cookie?

Are the fat-free coffee cakes really fat free? Do you have anything that's sugar-free?

It was like 20 Questions in some bizarre existence where there's just this complete ignorance of the fact that YOU ARE EATING FAST FOOD PASTRY! FOR SHIVA'S SAKE OLD LADIES, WHAT THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE SHOVELING IN THE CRAW? CARROT STICKS?

Beyond all that, there is the simple fact that these old birds must have been pushing 70, if not well beyond that.

The flesh would surely have slid off those bones like a well-cooked chicken. So I'm not at ALL sure where the concern over their health was coming from. Because if you've made it to 70 in this day and age, you've lived a pretty good life. Knock back a few slices of pound cake. Because you are IN the golden years - not worrying about getting there.

After all that - after ALL THAT - those old birds sat not ten feet from me and two of them knocked back grande frappuccinos. And each of them had pastry. EACH OF THEM. Lime Green had a cookie - those REAL good Starbucks chocolate chip cookies. (I will personally vouch for those things!). Cabbage Rose had the coffee cake and Ballet Flats had the lemon pound cake, which is only good if you get a slice with a lot of the sugary icing.

They were discussing the cruise they all took to the UK and the Shetland Islands. Ballet Flats kept getting up and running past me and going back and forth to her car to get photos and DVDs and other crap. One word lady - BACKPACK. Organization is a virtue. So is my patience.

Then some other crone - this one in a PINK pantsuit showed up, being squired around by a very fey grandson who was wearing denim shorts and an ugly button-up blue short-sleeve shirt and an pinky ring and sat with his legs crossed and listened them yammer on for a while. He had grandma's wallet and paid for a chocolate chip frappuccino and a pastry, so he made out OK. He had the car keys to - and it looked like a Beamer, so I guess he was getting something out of the deal.