THE VERY FIRST SBUXDRAMA POST, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

If you want to get technical, I've tapped away on blog posts from inside a Starbucks for years - but this very post was the genesis and the inspiration for the #sbuxdrama hashtag. I even found THE VERY FIRST #SBUXDRAMA TWEET. And the one after that. Please Kali. Just send a literary agent my way.

Ok. Finally, the drama at the Starbucks got to the point where I just couldn't keep up via Twitter. I needed time/space to write decent descriptions and keep the conversational flow going. For the record, all this happened at the Starbucks at [redacted]. I can highly recommend it for people watching.

Here's the backstory. Twitter status updates start HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Long story short? Blond girl came in with her friend, ranting about her man, whom she thinks is cheating on her, because he messed up big time and apparently sent HER a cell phone text meant for another woman. DUDE. Seriously. The blonde has kicked off her shoes and is curled up in one of the big SBUX recliners and is going to town on her iPhone. She's texting like a champ to her man, all the while complaining to her friend, who doesn't even look up while texting to her OWN man - who's apparently loyal.

The whole time, Blondie is hacking up a lung and going on and on and on about her antibiotics and how she takes pills five times a day and is apparently wants the entire world to know about her entire medical history. I'm six feet away and it is like she's screaming into my ear. I can't help but hear.

That's the background. We now pick up the story.

The blonde girl is now pontificating on why she's sick all the time. She got an audience now. Her friend, some random woman with a latte and some poor dude who wandered in while she was hacking up a lung. At first I thought he was her boyfriend, but he sat down at a table in the corner to nurse a venti something or the other.

I hate to tell her, but she's sick because she's wandering around Starbucks without shoes on. I've been watching her for about half an hour and she's not once worn shoes while walking to get her drink, go to the bathroom or the condiment bar. This is like the Britney Spears Cheetos in the gas station bathroom episode, live in living color. I gotta admit, sometimes, in the summer, especially when I'm wearing sandals, I'll take my shoes off for a second in Publix and stand on the tile floor. Cold feet make your entire body cold. But I don't run around public spaces with my shoes off for hours at a time.

Now she's telling everyone about her last trip to the ER. This other random woman is giving advice about "just take some Albuterarol (sp?) and that will clear it right up." I doubt it. The blonde girl has a hacking cough that sounds like a lung is about to come up. Hack. Text. Hack. Text. Hack. I wonder if Starbucks sanitizes its chairs afterwards?

The level of crazy coming out of this bunch of people is amazing. Amazing. Blondie is whipping out her cell phone every four seconds to check for text message from her man, grimacing and then banging away at the keyboard on her iPhone telling him to text her back. I would hate to be on the receiving end of those text messages. Mr. Wonderful is in for a major helping of angry girlfriend whenever he comes up for air.

They're packing up to go to out in search of burritos and Mr. Wonderful. That's a loaded sentence if I ever heard one. Good luck girls.

Fresh Fanny and Her Muffin Top

OK. Reality Check. How many people think there are actual "ovens" inside a Starbucks that are used to bake things? As in pastries? Delicious, sugary loaves and rounds of confections that are a delight to the tongue and palate? Gorgeous, tasty, calorie-filled carbohydrate bombs that decimate diets and serve dire warnings to diabetics that they should never venture anywhere near a Starbucks pastry case?

Attention boys and girls, how many of you out there think that there are giant ovens in the back of YOUR favorite Starbucks store dedicated to turning out piles of your favorite black-and-white cookies or crumb cakes or old-fashioned donuts? I mean, they make coffee there, why not cakes?

Yeah. I know. Reality is such a harsh mistress. The only baked that happens in Starbucks is probably going on around 4:20 p.m. and involves the patrons and possibly a few baristas - although I've never personally witnessed any "baking" of this sort going on.

Fresh Fanny is going on fifty. Fresh Fanny has flame-red hair, although it hasn't been "naturally" red in some decades, and Fresh Fanny uses enough hairspray to account for a hole in the ozone the size of France. Where she's never been, to "drive through Paris, in a sportscar, with the warm wind in her hair." She's a shriveled old prune who DROVE five miles from the mall, which has a perfectly good Starbucks, to come here. Maybe she needed a smoke. Maybe she wanted to flirt with the monkey-boy barista. (edit: this is the same one involved in the apron-twirling episode, so I'm going to call him Little Apron Aaron) Maybe she just wanted a fresh pastry ... and here our story begins:

FRESH FANNY: Casts a disdainful eye over the pastry case. Fresh Fanny is haughty, for she wears the uniform of a mall department store cosmetics counter worker, although you can buy *HER* brand in Wal-Mart. (Starts with "C" and ends with "linique," much beloved by drag queens everywhere. True story: I once knew a drag queen that wanted to call herself Clinique Lancome. They loved cosmetics. I don't know why.
BARISTA: "What can I get for you?"

FRESH FANNY: Another sneering eye. You work a cosmetics counter girlfriend. Noth the White House. Not even White House | Black Market. "Uh. Is this fresh?"
BARISTA: "What?"

FRESH FANNY: "Is the cake fresh?"
BARISTA: "We put it out a couple hours ago."

FRESH FANNY: "But is it fresh?"
BARISTA: "We don't bake it here."

FRESH FANNY: "Oh."
BARISTA: One of those looks of "Kali deliver me from the stupidity of this evil, especially from a fellow customer service wage slave."

FRESH FANNY: "Well, where does it come from?"
BARISTA: "Well, some comes from Miami, some comes from Tampa."

FRESH FANNY: "But is it fresh?" Obviously, no one has gotten "fresh" with this crone in a while.
BARISTA: "Yes." Because that's the path of least resistance. And there's no use telling her it comes frozen on a truck from Tennessee or wherever the rest of Starbucks pastries arrive from. Fresh Fanny has the cherished dream of a coffee farm - where young pastries and donuts gambol fresh and fancy free under a gorgeous mocha sky and grow up gently caressed by the tender mercies of a warm caramel rain.

FRESH FANNY: "Well let me have the lemon pound cake."
BARISTA: "Coming right up." Because that's obviously been sitting there the least amount of time. I saw that pound cake when I rolled up - and it looked left over from this morning. Way to go there old girl.

Fresh Fanny takes her grande coffee and her lemon pound cake and hoofs it out the door into the caramel latte night, never to be seen again, except in the darkest recesses of the make-up counters at the Macy's, wielding an eyebrow pencil and lipliner in a desperate bid to recapture her lost limoncito youth.

Wheelchair Winnie and the Super-Scooter of Doom

Old people. They just crack me up. They're all like Ed Asner in the first 40 minutes of "UP" - cranky, cantankerous and all-too-unhappy. Why can't they sit around taking Viagra and smoking a hookah or something? By the way, we'll cover hookah pipes on an upcoming episode of Starbucks Drama. Stay tuned!

Anyway.

I'm chilling with a co-worker at (where else?) Starbucks on Friday and we're visited by an old woman on a Rascal scooter. These things are nifty - they have the absolute best marketing campaign on the planet - even if they don't seem to be all that revolutionary. And the old people driving these scooters are hell on wheels - literally.

I'm going to call her Wheelchair Winnie. Mostly because I like alliteration.

Wheelchair Winnie roars through the door at a good clip. She doesn't have anyone open it for her or push it open with her hand ahead of her - she simply slams into it with the scooter and crunches it open. I'm about 15 feet away and I can hear the CRACK! as she slams the scooter forward. Old people. Absolutely no sense of proportion, decency or proportion.

Wheelchair Winnie is gonna get up in here and have her cup of coffee if it kills her, the door or anyone who happens to be trying to exit the door. As it happens, a couple nurses from the nearby hospital were headed in the general direction - until they saw her - at which point they promptly exited the side door. Maybe they had her as a patient in the not-so-distant past ....

Wheelchair Winnie gets into the Starbucks. And once immediately past the door, she stops. And backs up to a point about two feet from the door. Maybe she's checking out the place for a PETA protest or something. Maybe she needs to re-aim her scooter of doom. Either way, she doesn't move for a while.  Which is a problem because she's in the path of foot traffic and an entrance/egress point of a busy coffee shop. Wheelchair Winnie do not care.

Enter an office secretary type swinging through on one of those late-afternoon "I want a Starbucks" runs. She has a list and a cell phone glued to her ear and isn't paying a bit of attention as she swans through the door wearing fashionable heels, a black mini-dress and enough bangles to make Susanna Hoffs file a trademark suit.

Or at least, she TRIES to enter. She hits the door with one manicure hand while yakking up a storm on the other. The door gives about two feet and slams into the back of Wheelchair Winnie's scooter, which she's still got parked in FRONT of the door browsing a rack of ugly coffee mugs.

The stylish secretary looks through the door and gives one of those "if looks could kill" glares, at which point Wheelchair Winnie cranks up the scooter, BACKS IT UP, then hurtles forward for four feet and slams on the brakes again. The woman is a maniac.

She waits until the stylish secretary is actually in the Starbucks to play her second card. And she doesn't even say a word.

Wheelchair Winnie waits until the secretary gets in, then starts the scooter up AGAIN - and tries to race the woman to the counter to order. It is like a game - Handicap Death Race 2009.

I see the stylish secretary roll her eyes, sigh and finally give it up. She must deal with old people all the time.

After all this, Wheelchair Winnie gets a tall coffee - which is like $1.50 - and parks her scooter directly under the bar where baristas hand off drinks while she browses a rack of coffee beans. For a solid 30 minutes, people trying to get their drinks have to detour around her and this scooter, which she's constantly backing up, moving around and puttering back and forth.

I've got nothing on the handicapped - but this woman was just insane - and it honestly felt like she was trying to be as obtrusive as possible with her scooter. Some sort of "LOOK AT ME PEOPLE, LOOK AT ME."

Well, everybody looked at her all right - and gave her nasty looks - because she was clogging traffic like a broke-down taco truck in the middle of the freeway.

Does Starbucks sell cow juice?

Why would you ever be evil to the people who serve you food? That is just tempting the devil in my book. And people tempt the espresso gods all the time up in a Starbucks.

I'm waiting VERY patiently during the 8-9 a.m. rush hour the other morning. There is a crush of traffic and the line is in that "register-to-door" phase that identifies a successful and happening Starbucks. Well, that, or a store with terminally bad set of baristas. In which case the crowds soon solve themselves.

I'm dying for caffeine - despite my experiments in the home mocha trade - and I'm out of milk at home.

I'm waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I could have milked a cow and made this mocha myself. I do know how. I've even milked a goat. I've got mad skillz.

Finally, I'm one person from the register. One partner on register, two on bar, slinging drinks as fast as they can. Short-handed this morning. Typical. Anyway. The barista on register is one of those sweet old birds that's been around for a zillion years and has forgotten more about Starbucks than most kids will never learn.

I'm standing there. Clenching. Trying not to lose it before I can get some caffeine in my system and deal with the screaming howler monkeys that blanket the floor of this Starbucks like the floor of an Amazon rainforest (I hope they all get swine flu). And for some reason (maybe I ran over a small child last night?) the drama drops like a ton of bricks.

The man ahead of me totally freaks out. Over hot milk.

Yes. Not pastry. Not breakfast sandwiches. Not the fact that he can't get an Old-Fashioned Donut at 8:47 a.m. because they're all sold out. Not even the fact that he'd been waiting in line for 8 minutes.

This insane creature who was clearly put on the earth just to make my morning non-caffeinated morning worse than it already is wants HOT MILK.

But not just ANY hot milk. Hot milk mixed with hot coffee. As he proceeds to yell repeatedly at this chipper old barista.

This is the conversation, and I swear to Shiva, it was only the thought that I wouldn't last three seconds in prison that kept me from from picking up a package of those Starbucks macaroons sitting by the register and bludgeoning him to death.

MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "Hot milk!"

The old girl was doing a good clip, so she didn't even have time to greet him before he stepped up rapped out his order for lactate juice. I heard "hot milk" and leaned in. Because you never know when an #sbuxdrama situation will develop. Although I was praying it wouldn't. I seriously needed a mocha.

CHIPPER CHESSIE: "You want a hot chocolate?" Because to MY knowledge, and baristas please correct me if I'm wrong, Starbucks doesn't have plain old "hot milk" on the menu...


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "I want hot milk."
CHIPPER CHESSIE: Sighs, and I realize that there are people having far worse mornings than I am. "But what do you want with it?"


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "HOT MILK. IS IT THAT HARD?"
CHIPPER CHESSIE: "We have milk. I can give you a cup. There's more over there. But What do you want? Do you want hot chocolate, a latte, a mocha, coffee? What?"


And now he gets really pissy. And before you ask, he wasn't foreign, speech impaired,  using a cancer kazoo or in any way hampered in his ability to communicate in the English language. He was just a total and complete jerk. 


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "I want you to take a cup. I want you to put some damn coffee in it. And I want you to take some milk. I want you to steam the damn milk. And I want you to put HOT MILK IN THE HOT COFFEE."
CHIPPER CHESSIE: "Okay."

She's pissed off beyond reason. I can see it, because she looks like she's about to fold the twenty he threw at her into some sort of scythe and cut his throat. But she leaves the money on the counter where his greasy paw is, gets a cup of drip coffee and asks one of the baristas on bar to steam some fresh milk.

Then, she makes a production of putting a sleeve on the cup and says "Please be careful. This is very hot."


Which of course sets off round two of this little passion play.



MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "This is too hot."
CHIPPER CHESSIE: I swear to Kali the look she gave him would have melted glass, but she just calmly picked up another cup, slipped the paper holder off, slipped the new cup on and gave the cup back to him. "There you go."


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "Thank you." I was astonished he had the grace to be polite.

Remember I said he paid with a twenty? I guess he tried to be polite and leave a tip, but Chipper Chessie didn't want any of his money. She gave it all back. And he left a dollar on the counter - and she pushed it back at him, saying "No. You gave me too much."

This man would have tried the patience of saints. I was praying the coffee exploded or something, but that probably would have taken me out as well.

Holly Highwater and Polly Pickamix

What day is it? I've lost track. I barely know my own name. #dunkindonutsdrama?

Anyway. I'm parked at the deadest Starbucks this side of Utah (I AM NOT BEING DISRESPECTFUL, IT IS A JOKE, and according to Google, an inaccurate one!). On a side note, are there Starbucks in Utah? (Yes, 54, according to starbucks.com)

Now that my sad attempt at humor is over. I'm sitting in a dead, dead, dead Starbucks. There was photographic evidence of said fact, even. Dead. (I was going to make a showbiz pun, but no one's career is really dead anymore.)

Anyway. I need time for the sugar and caffeine to work on my raging headache before I drive home. I sit and look at the Internet on my phone and think about life and wonder how the heck I got to this point in my existence.

Oh yeah. I'm also praying for some Starbucks drama to happen, otherwise I'm stuck blogging about how I watched a guy surfing the net for Oral-B toothbrushes while slurping down a coffee cake and knocking back a white chocolate mocha this morning. The dichotomy is funny, but I can't spin much gold outta that straw!

And right on cue, fun walks and waddles in.

Trouble always comes in pairs. Always. Invariably. Makes you wonder if the inevitable higher power has a sidekick, really, because you know that other than Cthulhu, the rest of the deities probably at least had someone around to carry the packages.

Anyway. Two girls, one skinny and one way to big for her the britches she's poured into. Which is always the case when a zero accompanies a one anywhere.

The skinny one, hereby dubbed Holly Highwater, is trying to rock some ironic seventies fashion and has been tragically mis-instructed. Or else she's taking fashion tips out Tiger Beat. You can never tell these days.

She's doing the bell bottom thing, but has added a few cuffs and the resulting pants are hitting her about a foot above the ankle. Not quite capri length, not quite cuffed blue jeans, and certainly not flares or bell bottoms. Just bizarre. It makes her legs look stumpy.

Holly Highwater orders quickly. Skinny girls never seem to have trouble at Starbucks. They either order the most fattening thing on the menu and sit with it for hours and throw it all away in the trash or order a cup of hot water and sit with THAT for four hours. Nothing much in between.

Polly Pickamix is the fun one to watch. She apparently decides that since the place is empty except for me, Holly Highwater and two very bored baristas, she can give a command performance of "I Can't Make Up My Mind."

And this riveting show is something to watch. Truly. I've never seen a fat girl - and as a fellow fat girl I have every right to use that phrase - take a full five minutes to order off a Starbucks menu.

It was simply astonishing. First there was the jamming of both hands in the back pockets of the alread over-stressed jeans as she stared at the menu board, rocking back and forth from one foot to the other. Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Please don't tip over. Please?

Then, she asks the barista about pumpkin spice latte and if it tastes too "pumpkiny." Which I guess is a legitimate question. I'd rather they ask than get it and hate it.

Then Polly Pickamix puts her finger in one corner of her mouth and starts worrying a fingernail. She's genuinely puzzled. White Mocha? Espresso Truffle? Coffee, tea or thee?

The barista starts giving her that "can you please get it together" look, then asks "Do you have any more questions?"

These were upper-middle-class Caucasian young adults who I'm fairly certain have been into a Starbucks before, or at least knew what coffee was. There was enough skin showing to open up a leather store. They weren't visitors from another planet, culture or country. They knew the score. Well, maybe not. I have to wonder if Polly Pickamix knew that Starbucks served coffee.

Finally, the barista gets bored waiting. The order for Holly Highwater is sitting there on the screen and she said "You let me know when you figure it out" and goes off to make the first girl's drink.

I wanted to yell "Girlfriend, they serve coffee. FIGURE IT OUT!" I mean really? Have you looked at the menu board of a Starbucks lately? It isn't THAT complicated. Coffee, hot or cold. Smoothie or frappucinno or tea. What am I missing? PS: I miss Chantico. Seriously. That was some good stuff.

Anywhatzit. The first girl gets her drink (a tea or something) and stands there sipping on it and trying to help Polly Pickamix decide.

She finally orders a iced mocha and the world breathes a sigh of relief as the deadlock on the UN Security Council is broken.

I really hope girlfriend never has to make a hard decision, like college or something. She'll be on Medicare before she figures out that Florida State would have been an OK call.

When the faux-hawk met the chin-strap

I didn't win the genetic lottery. That's a sad fact of life that was made very apparent to me in the second grade when the high-school age "helpers" gave certain kids special badges and construction-paper flowers on Valentine's Day. I didn't get one - and it took me a very few minutes to figure out that the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall, willowy types go the pretties. Not the people that looked like me.

I will be the first person to admit that I'm not pretty. But you know what, what I didn't get in pure genetics, I sure got in computing power. Those hookers that got some cheap construction paper flowers are currently shackled in unhappy marriages with screaming children attached to their skirts and pushing buggies around the Wal-Marts of northern Louisiana while the husbands load guns into the back of the pick-em-up trucks and track mud and dog hair across the linoleum of the double-wide. I'll take my urbane latte existence any day.

Anyway. What does this have to do with Starbucks? Nothing much really, except that I developed an appreciation for fashion and design after I left home and got out into the world. One of the most gorgeous things I own is an authentic full-length Christian Dior Homme trench coat that I picked up for $25 in a Salvation Army thrift shop. It retails for somethign approaching a grand, I think.

But I especially love hair. I have tales. Ask me some time.

I've been a blonde, a brunette, sable, a redhead, something approaching a brassy copper, orange, a very bizarre straw-colored yellow and most shades in-between, including a couple of days spent trying for a pure white before giving up before my hair fell out.

Hairstyles fascinate me - other than the fact that I have zero talent in actually cutting hair, I might have a career.

Thus, when the wonder of wonders I saw come through Starbucks Monday night hit my field of vision, I knew that this creation, this story, this incomprehensible construction MUST BE BLOGGED.

And seriously, if you followed @sbuxdrama, you'd already know that follicular fantasy of which I speak.

Here are the pertinent facts.

1. It was on a man. Which makes it all the more impressive.
2. There was a lot of hair.
3. The man in question was undeniably heterosexual.
4. The man in question was drinking a pumpkin spice latte.
5. Despite the facts presented in #4, I still hold that #3 remains true!
6. The hair was black. Very black. Styling gel was present, a great quantity in fact.
7. The first element involved a faux-hawk.
8. The second element involved a chin-strap.

WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND THAT. The "Fin-Strap? Chin-hawk? Chin-hook?" I dunno. I like fin-strap.

Faux-hawk. Connected to sideburn. Which extended down to the chinstrap. Which wasn't all that narrow (just about the width of the sideburn) and went around the face. Which connected to the OTHER sideburn. Which went back up the faux-hawk.

IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH HAIR IN TOO MANY PLACES.

I just cannot adequately describe this.

There was just so much hair.

Every time I looked, there was a sight-line of hair going in a new direction. Off the front of the head, around the chin. Up the jaw. Up in to the hairline.

I think what made it worse was that he had shaved the sides of his head just slightly, so the faux-hawk was more of a mini-mohawk, and it just all looked bizarre.

That, and he was drinking a pumpkin spice latte. This I know for a fact, because I heard him order two of them - one for him, one for the girlfiend. And yes, she was his girlfriend, because he shared her front pants pockets on the cold, rainy day.

Just, wow.

I love Starbucks. You see all sorts of things.

Homeless Helen and the Employment Application

Homeless people and Starbucks seem to sort of gravitate toward one another - like moths to a flame, fat girls to peanut butter fudge ripple (don't rag on me - I have a special weakness for Ben & Jerry's peanut butter cup) or heroin addicts to a needle and a spoon. Starbucks cafes provide a place to get in out of the elements, a place to sit and a clean bathroom - things usually lacking in the "no housing wilds."

Now, I *seriously* do not want to be seen to be making fun of the homeless. I've had some skinny months - and bounced my share of rent checks. And yes, I've written a credit card check to cover the rent. For two weeks in grad school until I could find an apartment, I "lived" in, on and around the couches of various friends and seriously wore out my welcome. But I had money and friends and was never in danger of being thrown out of anything - even if I did get a ginormous crick in my neck.

Where was I? Starbucks. Homeless people.

I arrive for my evening mocha and dose of Starbucks drama only to find I missed all the fun.

There was apparently a homeless person begging for work. Which isn't all that unusual - except said homeless person decided to beg for work while the manager was counting money with the safe wide open and that the homeless person decided to walk around behind the counter and personally confront the manager while he had the safe open and bundles of cash in his arms. Maybe the homeless woman was detached from reality (joblessness will do that to you) and maybe it was just prep for a robbery.

I got the full chapter-and-verse replay to excited crowd of ex-baristas and off-duty baristas who rolled by for a latte and cheap (read free) pastries on their way to somewhere. This particular SBUX is like a magnet for current and former coffee-slingers.

Apparently, the woman had come in about twenty minutes before and ordered a tall coffee and a pastry. Nothing untoward about that. She's sat out on the patio even though it was raining - again, nothing odd, because it is cold as hell up in this SBUX and maybe she wanted to smoke or something.

Anyway. The lady drinks her coffee and eats her pastry and apparently the crazy balls start popping in her internal Lotto hopper and the "I'm going to go beg for a job" number ping-ponged to the surface.

So, as near as I can piece this together, from four excited baristas and ex-baristas and lots of squeals of "I'M SO GLAD THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN TO MEEEEE!"

MANAGER: I'm counting, I'm counting, I raking in the dough. Merrily, merrily, merrily, to Starbucks the world will go!

HOMELESS LADY: "Are you hiring?"
MANAGER: "Aaaaaaahhhhhhh." And he mimed clutching a stack of twenties to his chest. Seriously. Who puts the safe RIGHT UNDER THE PASTRY CASE?


HOMELESS LADY: "I really need a job. Are you hiring here?"

MANAGER: "Uhhhhhh. I really don't think so......."

HOMELESS LADY: "Maybe you need somebody part-time?"

MANAGER: "We're really not hiring anyone right now."

HOMELESS LADY: "I really need a job. I haven't worked since last May."

MANAGER: "I'm really sorry to hear that."

HOMELESS LADY: "I have to work. I lost my house. I don't have any money."

And this is apparently when the woman edges around behind the counter. According to the manager, she was "crazy-looking," but never really looked like she might go for the cash. You never know though. People are strange.

MANAGER: "I'm really sorry." Tries to shut the safe.

HOMELESS LADY: "I only have $34 left." Left unsaid is the fact that she apparently just spent $4 on a coffee and pastry at the Starbucks in stead of going across the road and getting a fifty-cent cup of coffee at the Hess station. Who knows.

MANAGER: "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

HOMELESS LADY: "Are you sure you're not hiring?"

MANAGER: "Really. I'm sorry. We're not hiring." Manages to close safe and realizes he's left with an armful of singles - which isn't a lot of money - but might be a significant haul to Madame Thirty-Four over here.

HOMELESS LADY: "Ohhhhhhhhh. I gotta getta job." Apparently, this was a moan.

MANAGER: "Uhhhhhhhh."

And apparently the woman started to cry and ran out.

I feel bad for her. I really do. And I just don't know how to handle it any better.

Because customer service training can only take you so far in so many situations. Empathy or not, what do you do with a jobless, homeless, not-quite-right person in your lobby who is putting themselves and you into a very awkward situation just by standing around asking the wrong questions at the wrong time?


This Starbucks seems to attract the homeless sort.

A homeless person once took up semi-permanent residence there years ago. It was summer and he slept in the woods at night and more or less moved into the men's room during the day. The door locked, so he came in early in the morning and locked himself in. If you tried the door,  you just thought someone else was in there - who would think to bother with the traffic a Starbucks gets?

Apparently - and I found this out after the fact - it went on for a couple weeks. The store staff realized after a couple days that the was holed up in there, but were a bunch of softies and sympathized with him. He wasn't hugely smelly or nasty, just homeless. First, one of the baristas tried to talk to him, then the manager. They offered to let him sit in the lobby or outside and give him food at the end of the night.

He wanted privacy to do whatever it is that men do in private, apparently. And was at least honest about it.

Which resulted in a call to the police. Said po-pos didn't do much more than give him a good stern "what for" and taking him off to the local homeless mission, which resulted in the homeless guy wandering back in two days later and locking himself in the bathroom.

So the cops come again. Take him off again. He shows up again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Which is actually starting to get necessay, because the guy is starting to get a bit rough around the edges. Apparently, the woodsman lifestyle isn't sitting so well with him - and at this point in the story, I see him for the first time.

He's sort of like the New York City homeless people. And he stinks. Whatever he's doing in that bathroom, he isn't using taking advantage of the unlimited soap, water and paper towels to bathe, shave and tend to necessary matters of sanitation.

It is a public health issue when the cops show up this time - and Mr. Smelly goes off to the stockade - which might have been his cunning plan. Three hots and a cot had to have been better than the Starbucks bathroom....

The Green Apron Fashion Show

I know I'm in trouble when I drive up to the Starbucks and one of my favorite cracked out baristas (one of those skinny, artistic, could-be-French, if he had a beret and a cranky accent) types is running around in the rain going back and forth to his car with a bag of clothes. (EDIT: He has now been christened Little Apron Aaron)

I ask "What are you doing," to which he replies "Getting out of my wet clothes." Well, that's a loaded statement if I EVER HEARD ONE!

OK. It is raining fit to beat the band, and maybe the boy got wet. Doing what, I don't know. Some sort of tragic espresso accident? Anyway.

I order my iced venti mocha and sit down and stare at a blank screen for a while. It just isn't happening tonight. I whack away on my Twitter and look at my Facebook. I don't fundamentally get Mafia Wars. Seriously. I really don't. And don't get me started on Farkle.

And then from behind me I hear screams of laughter.

The Parisian Pompadour, as I shall name the boy - even though he doesn't really have a pompadour - has decided he's cold and has put on SEVEN of his Starbucks aprons in an effort to keep warm.

And then we're treated to a fashion show. Complete with model walk. Bang. Out to the condiment bar. Turn to the left. Flounce. Sashay. Turn to the right. Work. Work. The girls on "Project Runway" could take some lessons. Seriously.

I really think "Project Runway" should pick this up and make it a challenge. I mean, they did Hershey's Times Square challenge - Starbucks would be just as interesting - coffee sacks and mugs and whatnot. It could be really fun. And I totally want credit for this idea.

Then the practicality factor kicks in and the fun is over. But not before we're treated to a discourse on the practicality of wearing seven Starbucks aprons to work, the potential to start a new fashion trend, the exact placement of all 14 apron strings, the number of green aprons owned by all the current AND former Starbucks baristas in the restaurant (four baristas, total of 63 aprons) and assorted other fun.

I love Starbucks. I really, really do. Come for the coffee, stay for the floor show!

Clueless Connie and the Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am always amazed by the behavior of people who walk in off the street a few minutes before closing time. There are a million reasons to visit a Starbucks. The devotees, like me, have built a curious religion around the stuff, while to others, the green mermaid represents everything that's wrong with America - $4 lattes being a cancer on the caffeinated soul of our very being.

The fine folk who saunter into a Starbucks 38 minutes before closing time can fall into one of a very few categories. They're either bored and looking for something to kill time, desperate for a caffeine/sugar fix, peripatetic & itinerant writers and carefree artist types like me who gadfly from place to place watching the action (although we're really just bored AND looking for a caffeine fix) and finally, the totally freaking clueless.

Tonight's visitor falls into that last category. We'll call her Clueless Connie and she's one of my FAVORITE *insert sarcasm here* types of Starbucks visitors in the whole, wide, green-apron-wearing world!

Clueless Connie rolls in. I know this because there are only the two equally clueless baristas with approximately six brain cells between them, me and some old dude with a computer and cell phone running some Web business over in the corner in the place.

Clueless Connie is dressed in some truly heinous clothing. She's trying to work some odd combination ballet flat and strappy sandal that might look good if her feet weren't so big. Or veiny. Over a pair of dark blue tights, there's a light blue tunic and a demure white cardigan. The effect of which is ruined because there is a visible underwear line.  The hair is an off reddish brown, styled like Sally Field in "Steel Magnolias." In the immortal words of Julia Roberts - "You just tease it and make it look like a brown football helmet." Girlfriend could walk onto most NFL teams. Those hips mean business!

Clueless Connie has obviously never been in this Starbucks before. She's not a caffeine junkie because she stops to browse the merchandise on her way to the register. In fact, Brainless Blonde Barista  and Brainless Brunette Barista don't even notice she's here.

In fact, I severely doubt if Clueless Connie has EVER been in ANY Starbucks ANYWHERE.

Clueless Connie is fingering a $300 espresso machine and $15 coffee mugs. Because we all make those kind of purchases at 9:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night in a Starbucks on a dead corner in a dead tourist town that rolled up the sidewalks three hours ago when the old people put their teeth in the glass on the nightstand to soak.

Clueless Connie moves on to the pounds of coffee beans. Clueless Connie reads the labels. Maybe Clueless Connie is a coffee connoisseur. Maybe Clueless Connie is crazy. Maybe I'm in love with the letter "C." Because "C" is for COOKIE! That's good enough for MEEEEEEEE!

"C" what I did there? I did not get enough caffeine or food today - and the combined sugar rush coupled with lack of food is making me loopy. Never drink an iced venti mocha on an empty stomach. The top of your head will get that floaty feeling.

Clueless Connie moves over to the clearance table. Clueless Connie is NOT YET at the register - and the baristas are arguing about the benefits of hyperventilating. Seriously. This is some scintillating conversation.

Curiously, Clueless Connie skips the pastry case and steps up to the register. I guess she has some strange misguided expectations of service from the pair of Brainless Baristas running the joint tonight - who continue to talk about how to save the Amazon rainforest through better use of hair gel and how to properly adjust your glitterthong. Meanwhile Clueless Connie waits. And waits.

And waits.

Finally, Clueless Connie coughs. Not really, she just said "Excuse me." The alliteration was better for my tale though. I can understand why they let her wait though - because she browsed everything in the store before hitting the register; one barista was mopping and the other was cleaning over by the sink. Neither was paying much attention to her because for the previous six minutes she hadn't been anywhere near interested in actually ordering a drink WHILE they were standing in front of the register.

Finally, Brainless Barista: Blonde Edition speaks up and greets her.

CLUELESS CONNIE: "What's Pike's Place"
BRAINLESS BARISTA BLONDE: "Pike's Place is the Starbucks Signature coffee."

CLUELESS CONNIE: "Don't you just have REGULAR COFFEE?" That is my all-time favorite Starbucks question. Like, what do you think it is? That the beans are some Kopi Luwak special or something? Yeah lady. They're gonna whip out some Maxwell House just for you and let you pay a nickel for it. Naw, girlfriend. That cup of tall coffee is $1.50, like it, lump it, leave it. That's "regular coffee" at the Green Apron special.
BRAINLESS BARISTA BLONDE: "Uhhhhhhh. That's what's brewing right now. Uhhhhhh." The terror behind those blank eyes. Even from across the room. Coffee drones. I should feel pity. I really don't. He's the one screwed up my drink because he was yammering about how he goes up to people and tells them "You're just totally unhealthy."

CLUELESS CONNIE: "Is Pike's Place your regular coffee?" And it is clear from the way she says it that she thinks she's demeaning herself to even say the words "Pike's Place." She could care less that Starbucks started out on a pier in Seattle and that Pike's Place is celebrating the company's 38th anniversary. Girlfriend wants some Folgers in her cup, STAT!
BRAINLESS BARISTA BLONDE: "Y-y-yesssss?"

CLUELESS CONNIE: "Then can I get a medium coffee?" And of course she pays with a twenty. I see the wad of bills.
The brainless blonde barista pours her a coffee and rings her out.

Clueless Connie goes over to the condiment bar. And immediately comes back because it is 9:30 p.m. and there is no milk. Was she expecting a cow?

Clueless Connie then takes the opportunity to browse the ONE part of the store she somehow magically skipped on her journey through the magical land of Starbucks merchandise - the pastry case. Which, at this point, has been wrapped and tagged by the Brainless Brunette Barista.

Clueless Connie starts staring at the chocolate chip cookies. Like the whole world will end if she doesn't put another joule of calorie into the thunder thighs. She's looking hungry. Imagine a brontosaurus (Yes, I know. No. I don't care.) staring down the last green palm frond of the Jurassic before the meteors hit. That's the look. Now. Imagine the barista giving her one back that says "Lady, if you make me unwrap these pastries and and re-count them and fill out this report again I will literally freak out. Fat girls on pastry won't have nothing on this skinny heifer whooping you.

Clueless Connie decides that discretion is the better part of valor and exits the field, her sugar rush unfulfilled and her underwear still showing. 

Goodbye Clueless Connie. Long may you browse.

Mermaid Mumbler and Her Siren Mermaid Magic

And the police are here.

Apparently the cops know to hit up the Starbucks approximately 30 minutes before closing to get their tall coffee and iced mocha before going back out on the beat.

They're taking the time to confer with the patrons. I guess there's a large load of crime and crime informants in the local Starbucks. Either that, or there's a hidden stash of cocaine buried in the pound bags of loose coffee beans.

Interesting fact, the slightly chunkier cop is the one knocking back the iced white mocha. I'd know that drink from forty paces. He's very bored and is checking out the merchandise while his partner flirts with the very artistic-looking young brunette working the register. She's one of those "artsy" type baristas that seem to populate every Starbucks from New York to Michigan to California. She's even wearing her hair pulled back in a head scarf.

Tall Coffee Cop is macking hard on the barista. She's in nursing school apparently - which finally explains the reason for the catheter discussion earlier. This was accompanied by the CHARMING visualization of the off-duty nurse asking her to hold up one of the bottles of Starbucks syrup, pointing to the top of the bottle, (to the syrup dispenser part) and saying "Yes, and imagine having something the size of this shoved ....." Well, you can figure that part out.

And now we finally come to the drama. Finally. I've been here for 40 minutes waiting for something good to happen. THANK YOU DRAMA GODS!


Wow. There's a very large woman in blue stretch capris (that image will STAY with a body) and some sort of red shirt who's come in waving around a Starbucks takeout tray. "EXCUSE ME, EXCUSE ME, EXCUSE ME." For the fashion? For the interruption? What?


Both baristas, who are in the middle of cleaning up and getting ready to close, stare at her blankly.

"Has anyone turned in a little *mumble*?" I still don't understand what the drinks tray was for?

And they finally remember her.

She was here hours earlier. She dropped a *mumble* in the parking lot and wants them to replace it. Uh. OK. You dropped it.

She orders drinks. An iced latte and a venti iced caramel machiatto. And then she disappears.

Very strange this lady. I can hear one barista calling the manager to ask about the thing. "Did anyone turn in a *mumble* today? Yeah. She's here again." Yeesh. I just wish people would stop mumbling and enunciate for once. I heard everyone yelling about catheters and how mermaid sirens with two tails wanted to rescue people just so they could GET some tail. What about Stretch Capri's business was so special that it had to be kept private? Apparently, the whole world saw it, stole it and kept it out in the parking lot!

And now I hear a flush. The bathrooms here are not insulated well at all and the woman re-appears. She gets her drinks and begs for her *mumble.* She's a mumbler. The barista is telling her "I really don't think anyone is going to turn it in if you just dropped it in the parking lot across the road." Oy Vey. One of the crazy ones.

She leaves.

And more crazy. A random dude off the street who wanders in, stands in front of the register, stares at the baristas and then walks away. They give him an equally bizarre *stare* and go back to closing up the store.

I suddenly decide that this might not be the best place for me tonight. Apparently, it is a full moon and the craziness has descended in force. If the blue capris mount another attack, I doubt the barricades of sanity will hold.

UPDATE: As I leave, I see the cops across the street, drinking coffee in the shadows of the run-down strip mall. Maybe they're waiting on the mumbler to come work her siren mermaid magic.....

The Tall Latte Tango

Old people are just ... not pleasant. I love my grandparents dearly, but if they ever tried to pull the stunts that some of the cranky, entitled crones and geezers I've seen pull inside a retail establishment, I might sign them up for a Republican "death counseling" course myself.

So. I'm waiting for my iced mocha. And there's a gnarled crone (isn't there always) standing at the drinks bar bartering with the barista that's making drinks. I sense something juicy (and it ain't the raspberry syrup!) and sidle on down.

OLD LADY: "This isn't hot enough."
BARISTA: "But you got it fifteen minutes ago."


OLD LADY: "But it isn't hot enough."
BARISTA: "And you got it fifteen minutes ago. What is wrong with it?"


OLD LADY: "IT ISN'T HOT ENOUGH FOR MY HUSBAND."
BARISTA: "Where is he?"


OLD LADY: "He's coming from downtown. I want it hot for him when he gets here."
BARISTA: Her eyes get wide, and I can see the many, many responses for this craziness bouncing around in her brain like Lotto balls in a hopper. Finally, the Starbucks "Just Say Yes" customer service philosophy pops out on top and she remakes the drink. I guess she remembers what it was. Obviously something simple, because she whips it out in no time flat. Like a tall latte I think, judging from the size of the cup and the fact that there was no syrup or anything.


BARISTA: "OK. Here's a new drink."

OLD LADY: "Well. It isn't going to be hot when he gets here."


OLD LADY: "He like it to be real hot. He like hot coffee."
BARISTA: "I just made it."

At this point, I should note that the old lady now has TWO drinks. The one that "isn't hot enough," and the new one, the one the barista just made.

The barista gets tired of jabbering with the old crone and yells for the manager. He comes running, especially once he sees that there's an old biddy involved.



MANAGER: "Can I help you?"

OLD LADY: "I need a new drink. This one isn't hot."
BARISTA: "She just asked me to make her a new drink. She said she the one she had wasn't hot enough."


OLD LADY: "It isn't hot enough for my husband."
MANAGER: "Where is he?"


OLD LADY: "He's coming up from downtown."
MANAGER: Gives her the *look* and goes to take both cups of coffee back from her, with the obvious intention of making a *fresh* cup of coffee once the husband gets there.

She ain't having NONE of that. She - now in possession of at least ONE ill-gotten latte - intends to keep it - and probably intends to go for another.


OLD LADY: "No. These aren't any good."
MANAGER: "Why did you order for him if he's 10 miles away?"


OLD LADY: "I ...... " No answer. She's a scammer. I wonder if the husband even exists - except in her own mind.
MANAGER: GRABS THE COFFEE CUPS OVER THE BAR AND STARTS A TUG OF WAR WITH HER, EXCEPT THAT SHE PROVES TO BE SURPRISINGLY STRONG. "I wish you hadn't done that, because now we have to throw out two cups of coffee."


OLD LADY: "Well don't do that. I'll drink them."
MANAGER: GIVES HER *ANOTHER* LOOK. Like "You must be crazy woman! To think you're going to get THREE cups of coffee for the price of one."


OLD LADY: "He's coming from downtown and he wants hot coffee when he gets here!"
MANAGER: I can see the internal deliberation. How much are two lattes worth? How much fuss with this cow potentially raise? It *IS* just coffee and water at the end of the day? RIGHT? And I certainly don't get paid for this. "Fine. Take it." And he lets go of the cups. I was rooting for them to splash the old biddy, but alas, no drama there.

She marches over to her chair and settles in, with two lattes to her credit.

I stayed there for a good 45 minutes.

I never did see a husband.

Grunting Granny and the Eager Entrepreneur

I will be the first to admit that I don't have a special talent for this stuff - by that I mean something like super hearing, X-ray vision or stealth.

I basically just nosy. I like to watch people, listen to people and see what the heck they're doing. Everybody else's business is way more interesting than the gaping void of nothingness that's going on my life. You can stumble upon all sorts of things if you keep your head down, eyes open and ears perked for drama.

I had to drive northward for work Wednesday and left work to fight traffic during rush hour (yes, I am qualified to be in Mensa. Why do you ask?). I know, cue the excitement. I stopped off at fairly large Starbucks stuck in an outparcel in a big strip mall - which is across the parking lot from a Super Target with a Starbucks inside it and across the *SAME* parking lot from a Barnes & Noble that's SERVING Starbucks coffee. I don't understand either. I don't get paid for city planning. Someone should pay me for *something* though.

Anyway. I get my usual and a pastry - because I'm starving and don't know that I'll have time to eat before my event. This is when I experience the guided tour of the barista's pockets. I swear the girl had never heard of a purse. Skinny jeans and she had enough gear to survive in the wild for six days. Maybe she just liked having everything handy - but I remember when I worked retail - I hated having everything slamming around in my pockets all day - and it was just one more ounce of weight you had to carry.

Anyway. On with the story.

I'm sitting on one of the couches - this was a 2004-2006 Starbucks maybe? It has that nuevo-modern furniture in the curves and the blue and orange color palette. Not the wood from the older stores or the cheap and tacky-looking plastic from the ultra-modern stores that opened up in the past two years. None of those mod prints and all. Don't get me wrong, I like the store. I like the colors. I like the vibe, and I've hung out there before. Plus, the baristas are most definitely cut from that generic coffee-slinger/alterna-hippie mode with interesting tattoos, piercings and slightly kooky fashions that make for a decent coffeehouse vibe.

Anywhozits. Where was I? Besides from admiring the help?

Sitting on a nice couch enjoying my venti iced mocha and eating my old-fashioned donut. My radar goes off and I start to pick up one *those* conversations.

Let me back up a bit. I know. I'm a terrible storyteller. I would never last in the "Arabian Nights."

When I was sitting down on the plush fake pleather couch, I saw a dude getting a laptop out of a car in the parking lot. No big deal, right? People park in a Starbucks with laptops all the time. He looked like a student type, average height, average build, kind of sandy-ish red hair, wearing a faded blue and white striped polo shirt, khaki shorts and an older, rather battered Windows laptop. Not memorable at all, so I went back to my drink, my donut and my text messaging about the barista's pocket full of goodness and dismissed him.

Then he started talking. Not memorable turned out to have been my first mistake.

At first, I thought he was talking on the phone, because I didn't see anyone come in with him. As I later found out, this proved to be my second mistake.

But before we get there, let's cover Stripey Polo's FASCINATING conversation.

As near as I can tell, what I assumed to be a student-type is/was/might be a real estate speculator in disguise. As near as I could get down, because I was trying to take notes in the notes application on my phone, this is the conversation. I drifted into it halfway when the word "stove" came up, because he got really animated and was practically yelling at that point. And it went on for a while. The MUMBLES: are the pauses in the conversation for the other party, the one I thought was on the phone for most of this little encounter.

STRIPEY POLO: ".....but yeah we can get right into there tonight with that stove." "YES. I SAID I JUST NEED TO FIND A STOVE." *This was the part where he got militant and yelled."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah. I dunno. I said I dunno. We need a used one if we're gonna get in there tonight. I don't got no more leads."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Well what about ....." and I couldn't hear this at all.
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "There's a used place around here somewhere. We gotta go there and get that stove. We gotta get in there tonight."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)

STRIPEY POLO:"Yeah, I know. I'm tough. I gotta do it all. What are you gonna do?" "You gotta hustle in this business. You gotta keep moving."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "What are we doing tomorrow? What about that other unit? What do we need to do in there? I thought you were gonna do it?"
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "I don't know."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Well, I mean somebody gotta go in there and clean it up before they get here. It needs new (garble)."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)

STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah, yeah, I know, right! Let's do that. We can go down and get some siding and fix it tomorrow."
MUMBLES: (still dead silence; not a sound, not a peep)

Keep in mind that I can *HEAR* but not see the kid through all of this. There's one of those big racks of coffee mugs and bags of ground coffee that Starbucks is so fond of between me & him.

STRIPEY POLO: "Hey, what do you think about going out to the liquidation center and getting stuff?" "We could get a lot of good deals on plumbing and fix that bathroom."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Well, you wanted to do that last week and never did."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "There's that place down the road too."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)

STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah. Do you have the number? We can call them and see if they have it. They said they had it. We need it." *No idea what it is. Might have been code for drugs.*
MUMBLES: (dead silence)


STRIPEY POLO: "Hey, do you have the money? We gotta get the money to go get the stove. We gotta get that stove tonight. We gotta get it. It's gonna be nice, that stove."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)


STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah. That's gonna be a good stove."

At this point, I was done with the donut and felt the call of nature. I threaded my way back to the loo and did my business. Upon exiting, I finally got a full-frontal look at who Stripey Polo had been talking to - and got the shock of my life.

An old decrepit crone with wrinkles an inch thick in her skin and eyes sunk deep into her skull. She was slumped into the chair in a way that I didn't even KNOW you *could* slump into some of those rigid modern plastic numbers at a Starbucks. Picture Irene Ryan from "The Beverly Hillbillies" and add about 30 years onto that, minus the good living and plus a few night spent in dive bars and fleabag motels with needles jammed into her arms. That was this old lady.

And Stripey Polo was *STILL* going on about stoves and counters and drywall and whatnot. She sat there listening, taking it all in with a look at that said pretty much nothing at all. It was either a blissed out coma or the must supreme case of indifference I've ever seen in a human being. Maybe she was just waiting for him to get together the cash to score some dope - although I have my doubts about anyone dumb enough to try to put together a deal inside a Starbucks.

Days later, I still can't figure it out. Who were they and what were they doing together? It was just the most unlikely odd couple you could have imagined. Was he some sort of speculator or real estate guru - the truth of which I could just barely believe. In which case - who the heck was she? Never made a sound. Didn't look like the lights were on - nor had they been on for a long time.

Lacking anything else, I'm tempted to go with random dopers - and they were trying to sell scrap somewhere - although I'm positive that they would have already pawned the laptop of they were desperate for something. I just don't get it. I just don't get it at ALL.

High drama at the Starbucks. High drama indeed.

When GreenEyes Met Brunhilde: A Starbucks Love Story

There is a fascinating conversation going on next to me. Seriously. This is like watching lion cubs prowl the Serengeti, except in this case, it is more like watching three indolent kittens bat a roll of toilet paper around the bathroom floor. They're adorably cute, but you know they'd last about two seconds in the wild before being sucked down the maw of the Doberman next door.

Let me set the scene. This *ENTIRE* Starbucks is emtpy. There must be twenty five empty seats - and three young adults plop down next to me on the couch. High school, barely post-high school, I don't know for sure. (The photo at right shows the scene of the crime.)

Character #1: Teen-age male, shaggy brown hair of medium length, a green T-shirt, green eyes and blue jeans that have seen better days. There's a hole in the back of one leg that makes you wonder if it is a strategically placed rip or an access hatch.
Character #2 & #3: Undistinguished teenage girls, both wearing shorts and shirts that left their midriffs bare despite the fact that is pouring rain outside and frigid inside this Starbucks.

One was slightly more pale and a bit more chunky (she was the brunette, natch - we'll call her Brunhilde) than the other. She also had the good sense to be wearing some sort of jacket, although it wasn't doing nearly enough to keep her warm. Brunhilde jabbered on a lot while playing on her cell phone and firing questions, while the friend, the blonde one, stared straight down at her phone and slammed out text messages for a while. We'll call the blonde Cassie, just because.

The chunky brunette and the slightly smarter blonde (is that a phrase even used in the English language?) were macking HARD on this dude. You could see the pheromones rolling of Brunhilde like those old Loony Tunes with the skunk and the cat. Brunhilde wanted GreenEyes badly, even if he was way out of her league. Cassie probably knew she could get him if she put out the effort, but she wasn't really bothered.

They wandered in, oblivious to the fact that I was trying *really* hard not to be obvious about the fact that I was *obviously* listening once the conversation got good and proceeded to have a rambling, free-form conversation that honestly makes me weep with shame for the future of mankind, humanity and the fact that entitled little monsters like this are supposed to be voting in elections and paying my social security in a few decades time. WEEP WITH SHAME! Honestly, when the time comes, I think I'll just find a nice plastic bag rather than trust Brunhilde and Cassie to elect anything more than a potted plant to high office.

Here are the "alleged" highlights of this fictional biography of the mystery known as GreenEyes:
1. GreeneEyes was supposedly born at a "clothing-optional resort" to a mother who no longer rears him, only "stops in" occasionally.
2. There are allegedly 18 people living at his house and most of them smoke weed all day. People constantly accuse him of smoking because he smells like weed "all the time." I don't smell it, but I have a vicious sinus infection at the moment.
3. After about two minutes of this claptrap, I can tell that he's totally fronting on these girls, but they're lapping it up like cats with a bowl full of cream.
4. GreenEyes just told the girls that he is "legally" blind, and that he can't see when he drives on the Interstate. All he sees are "blurs of light." Cassie just asked him "Why don't you get contacts?" and he said that he "enjoys the visions." Uh-huh. No flies on her. Brunhilde thinks that the blurs are wonderful and wants to know what he does when "there are like big trucks and things." I bet that's not the only big thing she's after.
5. There's some convoluted drama about the people he lives with and some cars and some other people and how it is like an open house and I don't really understand the lies. I don't really care. Ugh. Bo-ring.
6. Apparently, someone named "Michelle" or "Millie" (I dunno) doesn't like the GreenEyes, because she won't let him work more than the weekends somewhere. McDonald's maybe? Would you really want to work six days a week at McDonald's?
7. Now the kids are complaining about how hard it is to work for a living. Really? Maybe they're not in the weed business after all.
8. Somebody named Lisa at whatever place they work is way too nice and is the manager's spy, apparently. Alice wants Darla's job and she's next in line. Wow. This is like "Saved By the Bell" without the pseudo-diversity. Who is Dennis? Dallas? Melvin? I can't keep up. Wait. STOP. Apparently someone is bipolar.

I SWEAR TO CTHULHU! FROM THEIR MOUTH TO THIS KEYBOARD!

9. Ohhhhhhh. Apparently they work at a hardware store? Kids mumble and there's some really loud music on now. Plus they're all talking over each other in excitement over this Lisa chick who apparently tattles on EVERYONE because she is trying to get in bed with Dennis? Dallas? Melvin? - whoever the manager is. There's a bell or something people ding when they want service? I gotta say, I can't see this kids at a hardware store - but I guess they can just work the register or whatever.
10. And, apparently the guy gets a phone call and this episode of "As The Drill Bit Spins" is over. He obviously has better things to do than hang around with two way too sweet but waaaaaaaaaaay out of their league girls. Like hook up with his dealer or something maybe? Seriously. He is mumbling into this old-skool flip phone and ignoring the barista patiently standing at the register waiting for him to order.
11. Now the dude - I still never caught his name - is on the phone at the register ordering for real this time. A chocolate chip Frappucino® And some more Frappucinos® Got the munchies do we? Uh-huh. Aaaaaaand he's gone.

That was the best SBUXDRAMA ever and I didn't even have to work for it. It walked right in and sat down beside me. My faith in the essential craziness of humanity has been restored!

The Secret of the Swinging Door

I've been waiting nearly an hour - doing other things mind you - I can multi-task with the best of them - for something post-worthy to happen inside this Starbucks.

I got bupkiss.

Frankly, the most exciting thing to happen so far is a Monty Hall type choice of these three, all of which would result in a goat nibbling on a patch of grass:

1) a barista using a vacuum cleaner to suck the crumbs out of the pastry case. I know. I know. Cue the seventy-six trombones and ready the ticker-tape parade.
2) some random hooker-looker girl with the absolute worst bleach job I've ever seen and the tightest pair of blue jeans this side of Vegas wandering in off the street and asking "What time ya'll close?" That was it though. Nothing else - and she promptly left. Maybe she was setting up out on the patio next to the Quizno's.
3) some random old people who ordered two espressos and decided to plop down on the couch next to me even though the ENTIRE rest of the restaurant was empty and proceed to call the grandkids and yammer on about how great the vacation was going. And they're wearing long-sleeved shirts and jackets - in September - in Florida.

I've decided the real excitement is the fact that I've watched four baristas do the knockabout clowns and quick-change comedians act for the past two hours. They've laughed and joked and thrown things and occasionally cleaned. One even did the aforementioned vacuuming.

They even served a half-dozen customers.

Most of the time was spent in the back room - where there must be something mighty good going on - and they SERIOUSLY must trust the people in here not to steal - because honestly, they disappear back there for looooooooong stretches of time.

Also, the music at this Starbucks is turned down really low. I can barely hear the Muzak - and it is usually blasting the doors off the place at most other stores.

This whole little escapade is really funny. There are two men and two women on duty. The two guys sit in the back and send the women out to wait on customers - I *know* there's a sensor every time someone hits the drive-thru - I can hear it; I'm guessing there's one every time someone hits the front door, although I can't hear that one. Maybe it is just the "whoosh" of air pressure.

And now that they're finished with the latest customers, BACK to the back the women go. I'm dying to know what's back there - gold? rubies? gems? the secret to making the perfect Frappuccino®? enough coffee filters to diaper the world's babies eight times over? a solid platinum and Swarovski encrusted espresso machine? WHAT? I MUST KNOW THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SWINGING DOOR!

And that's enough for one night. I'm veering into silliness. I really don't think they were doing anything nefarious - just not actually "working." I had a drink - really didn't care though.

Napkins are a boy's best friend

Children see me coming. I have no other explanation. My predisposition to dislike howler monkeys is well known - and apparently I have some sort of magnetic attraction to the two-foot-tall, screaming, germ-carrier, miniature versions of the badly behaved parental units. They flock to my places where my sanity skates on a knife edge.

Today was one of those days. I had a smashing headache, chiefly because I hadn't eaten in something like 18 hours (mostly my fault) and meetings and urgent phone calls kept getting in the way. So I hit the Starbucks with about 35 minutes to get food, a beverage and catch my breath before the next round of insanity.

Bad enough that there's no pasta salad in the cold case (I settled for a very dry turkey sandwich), I sit down to eat and a demon from the depths of nursery school starts up. OH KALI, THIS TABLE IS SQEAKING FIT TO RAISE THE DEAD. I OBVIOUSLY RAN OVER SOMEONE TODAY AND AM BEING PUNISHED.

OK. Child. I'm eating and I hear this *noise* emanating from the corner. It is a little boy, around 3-ish. Overalls (probably GAP), cute shirt and some leather sandals. Expensively dressed. Daddy is lolling in the corner, browsing the iPhone and smiling indulgently.

The child gets louder and from somewhere produces a toy truck, which he proceeds to wave around in the style of a magic wand - ZAP, ZAP, ZAP - except the ZAPs are accomplished by shrieks more like EEEEEKS. Then, Junior decides to come out of the corner near where Daddy Dearest is staying and cohabitate with the rest of the noonday Starbucks crowd.

What's his target you ask?

The napkin dispensers! Which happen to have been freshly stocked by one of those impossibly tall, impossibly skinny latte dispensers named Bianca or Margarethe or Nadia or Anastasia - never Mary or Jennifer or Sue. You know the type. She's a size 0 and would look equally at home serving coffee in a cafe on the Champs-Elysees as slinging venti mochas in a Starbucks in Peoria.

So Junior happens to catch the condiment bar unguarded - surely the stuff his chubby two-fisted dreams are made of - and decides to dig in with both hands. I can almost picture the carnage as he reaches up. Napkins will fly like fur in a catfight. One after the other in a recycled brown rain. It will be a thing of beauty.

Daddy ruins this perfect vision of chubby fury unleashed and swoops in to capture the recalcitrant child as the brat is climbing on the trash can - seriously - do you KNOW what's been going on in that thing - and tugs him back off to the corner before turning him loose again.

Daddy Dearest it appears, has a business meeting - as some older man in slacks and a nice collared polo (obviously retired) swans in looking hale and hearty.

They exchange business cards.

Daddy makes another run to rescue Junior from a standing display of bagged coffee.

The businessmen shake hands.

Junior makes a move toward a stand full of coffee mugs.

Daddy deftly intervenes and blocks the pudgy plonkers with well-timed pat on the head.

Junior pelts for freedom across the lobby - and a certain date between his head and the edge of a table - and quite possibly the passing chance to acquire a bit of familiarity with a lick of sense - and the elder gentleman intervenes. Sadly, it seems this little one is destined to live long and prosper and be protected.

He, like information, wants to be free.

Daddy denies him time and again - and keeps up a pretty good conversation with the old dude. Obviously, he's used to hauling the little plonker around all the time.

Which raises the question - WHO TAKES A KID TO A BUSINESS MEETING?

Seriously. There are so many unanswered questions there - namely that you're doing business in a Starbucks while babysitting your child. I'm not judging, but I really do wish you'd investigate giving the kid a bit more home training. At least teach him to sit a bit more quietly and play with toys - even if your circumstances don't permit a babysitter.

Six minutes to Frappuccino®

Apparently, and I *did not* know this - despite my vast repertoire of Starbucks knowledge - until I started writing - that Frappuccino® is a registered trademark of the Starbucks company. Really, I should have known. But I had to Google Frappuccino® to figure out exactly how to spell it - and I wound up on the Wikipedia page - which claims that Frappuccino® is a registered trademark; of course, you can ALWAYS believe everything you read on Wikipedia....

Anywhozits.

I unplugged for most of the weekend; I just needed a break and made the decision to turn of the computer and phone for anything other than US Open news. I emerged from my self-imposed exile around 8 p.m. on Labor Day Monday with a ferocious need for an iced mocha and some #sbuxdrama.

I roll into my friendly neighborhood Starbucks and the place is dead, dead, dead. It is so dead that baristas have obviously resorted to cleaning, mopping even. The floor is spotless. The windows have been cleaned, every surface sparkles and there are a dozen ugly plastic flower arrangements jammed into some even uglier fake pumpkins with "MADE IN CHINA" stickers (I should have got photos) on the bottom to celebrate the arrival of Pumpkin Spice Latte scattered around the place. One more thing to take up space on the cramped tables, but I digress.

I get my usual, iced venti no-whip mocha and settle in to wait. Surely the Elder Gods won't disappoint me and my need for #sbuxdrama on this day?

I like the comfy chairs, and the baristas are bored enough to have taken over the music selections and are pumping out techno like the place is a disco. I'm perfectly happy, but the place is like a morgue. I even made a video - although the quality of video I can take from my BlackBerry is quite poor.

I'm about to call it a night and head home when my prayers are answered. A bored lot of teenagers roll in from somewhere and stand staring at the menu board like they've never been to a Starbucks before. Seriously. It is like they've never even been in a coffee shop, much less a Starbucks. And there are what? Something like 11,000 Starbucks stores in the country and 16,000 on the planet? And you've never run across a tall, grande or venti before?

So, the five of them stand there looking at the menu board. And looking. And looking. And looking. This goes on for a while. A good loooooong while.

Two middle-aged ladies come in and wait politely for them to make up their minds, then just cut right in front when it becomes obvious that the kids have no clue what they want. It isn't a debate over money either - that comes later - they're seriously pondering WHAT TO GET - like this is a matter of world peace, or if humanity will fall back into the Stone Age if they order a latte instead of a Frappuccino®.

The middle-aged duo orders and the barista on bar makes the coffees and gives them their pastries. I can hear the kid at the register thrumming his fingers on the counter and see him give the kids the "look." Three of them finally order - a grande Caramel Macchiatto®, a tall Frappuccino® and an iced mocha. That leaves two, a couple who are just *standing* there, sort of fiddling.

Frappuccino&#174, no Caramel Macchiatto® no Frappuccino&#174, no Caramel Macchiatto® and she finally settles on a tall Caramel Macchiatto®. He gets a regular mocha, but suddenly they don't have enough money, which results in a mad scramble for change from everyone digging in their pockets. Quarters, dimes and finally one girl whips out a purse and slaps a wad of bills on the counter. I think she just wanted to make them sweat.

The kids cut their eyes at me for taking up one of the comfy chairs - obviously they'd like to claim them - but I have no plans to move - I was here first, after all - even if they did provide the entertainment. So they settle in at a cafe table and proceed to yammer away for a while about inconsequentials. There's a lot of cell phone text messaging, even though they're all together. Kids these days. At least they're together and pursuing legal activities.

The drama quotient having dropped back to the nil level, I pack it up and depart, but not before getting one more mocha for the road!

$18.02 and counting

I've never had money, at least, not a lot of it. Consequently, I've never "forgotten" my change at a store register - certainly nothing more than a few coins. I've never forgotten a shopping bag full of groceries or merchandise either - something which seemed to happen with predictable regularity when I worked at the House of Wal.

Anywho.

I'm lined up three deep at the register at Starbucks and this well-dressed specimen of middle-aged shopping acumen forks over a twenty for a small coffee. I see the change flashing on the screen - $18.02.

The barista hands over the coffee and the well-heeled woman moves away, shaking a few bangle bracelets and a gold watch down her leathery, lizard-skinned arm.

The woman moves off and I move up to the register - and the barista realizes she's *STILL* holding eighteen dollars and change.

She calls to the woman, who's headed out the door and picking up steam by now, with the cell phone out, the sunglasses in mid-whip-out and the gigantic bag in full swing. Fortunately, there was no purse pooch. "Ma'am, do you want your change?"

Oblivious.

"MA'AM"

Startled look.

"Do you want your change?" Barista waves the bills. "Unless you want to leave me an $18 tip?"

"Oh no. I don't want to do that."

And the woman took everything but the two pennies.