I've been going to a new Starbucks - the one with the head barista that I christened Vintage Billy Idol. He's very glam rock, with the mega-bleached white hair, guy-liner and cute little faux-hawk. Not quite my type, because he tends to shriek, but I did get a free lemon pound cake the other night. I didn't complain.
But I seriously have to wonder about just what sort of hiring process goes on in Starbucks these days. Or if they alert the kids that they're being recorded.
Because despite my complaints, there was quite a bit of drama in the span of about 15 minutes in the Starbucks.
First, there was a tennis match between Vintage Billy Idol and the other barista, who could double for the Unabomber, easy.
I'm sitting there, moping, wondering if anyone had posted the results of "Project Runway" on the Internet yet, when I hear this thumping coming from behind the counter. Thump. Thump. Thump. Like that rabbit from Bambi. Or your annoying frat-rat wall-mates in college, who had different girls EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. and couldn't understand that they needed to move the bed another six inches away from the wall.
I look up and out of nowhere there's a tennis ball. Vintage Billy Idol squeals with delight and runs up to caress it. "Where did you get that?" Seriously, sugar-plum, they sell them three to a can at the gas station. But I've been known to get excited over all sorts of things - including corn muffins, so I'm not going to be too cranky.
It is what HAPPENED with the tennis ball that is so riveting. They decide that they're going to do their best Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi impression - right there - behind the counter - in front of God, the customers, coffee beans and frappuccinos.
The Unabomber backs up all the way to the coffee bar where I'm sitting, while Vintage Billy Idol goes about ten feet away toward the office.
And they start throwing the ball back and forth. The rules are apparently that it can only bounce once, but it can't be a *low* bounce or a too-high bounce or a too-short bounce.
Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. This goes on for a few minutes before they get bored and decide to make it *interesting* and start bouncing the thing off the cabinets and the pastry case.
I'm sitting there, rolling my eyes at this one. I'm praying that a customer walks up or something and a stray bounce will take out the pastry case, causing it to explode in a cloud of razor-sharp muffin-shards. Sugar crystals will impale the blasted yakking old woman in the ugly leopard print while bran muffins will pummel the tourists in the black socks. I'll use my ninja skills to dodge straws and kick slices of pound cake into next Thursday.
Alas, nothing. Although one bounce does hit the ceiling. And another ricochets off the sink, hits a cabinet door and when the Unabomber goes to pick it up he cracks his head on the open cabinet door. No blood. Not even a trickle.
BUT THAT ISN'T EVEN THE BEST PART.
Somehow, somehow - and please don't ask me because I wasn't paying attention, tennis "ball" led to a discussion of, of all things, Ron Jeremy.
YES. Noooooooo. YES.
I'm checking my email and all of a sudden I hear the Unabomber talking to me - "You know who Ron Jeremy is, right?"
I look up and he's staring at me, as is Vintage Billy Idol and two apparent coffee-shop habitués who'd been on the corner barstools as long as I'd been there, yammering away to Unabomber about somebody's boyfriend and how they didn't like their "open relationship." No, it really WASN'T that interesting.
Anyway, I'm like "Uh. Yeah." And then Vintage Billy Idol goes "Well, I don't know who he is, and I don't know what that has to do with anything."
The Unabomber starts twirling the tennis ball around and lecturing the other three "He is famous. Like really famous. I can't believe you don't know who he is. Everyone does." Well, to get technical, only 40% of the population of that corner of the room knew, at that point. No matter how you slice that, even with George W. Bush math, that ain't "everyone."
They look back at me, as if expecting enlightenment, and I hold up my hands and go "nuh-uh." I wanted no part of that one. I don't know how the conversation got to porn - but I'm really not surprised that none of them knew who the heck a straight porn actor was. Although the Unabomber looked like he knew ALL about porn.
So, now that I refused to enlighten the trio, the Unabomber decides to take it upon himself to "describe" Ron Jeremy's attributes. Vividly. As if he were a fisherman describing his catch.
The things you see and hear in a Starbucks. I don't know why they charge for the WiFi - they should just charge for the entertainment!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
All's Fair in Love and Latte
Blessed Shiva knows that coffee shops are like a smörgåsbord for hipster hoochie-coochie. Probably up against the sink in the bathroom. Yet, the hipsters - and every one else - still keeps on coming. Pun totally not intended.
Anyway. I'm totally not inspired, so I'm browsing the Internet when something European walks in - and not the crazy-aggressive female tourists that earned the tweet earlier.
This is very male, very "fashionable," and very fey. FIGURE. IT. OUT. He has cute little khaki shorts with some sort of drawstrings on the bottom of the sides and a white pullover that probably cost what my car payment does. There's a gold chain on one wrist and something that isn't a Seiko on the other. Brown hair in a weird bob, no socks, and I confess I didn't look to closely at the shoes.
The face isn't classically handsome, and the potential Abercrombie factor is more or less a toss-up. Probably less. Definitely less. And not in that "less is more" kind of way. Not ugly, but more Brunhilde than Heidi Klum. He's more stocky and Germanic than tall, blonde and Norse. And his chin pokes out. Which Holy Roman Emperor was that? Didn't "The Tudors" do an episode? Charles the somethingth.
So Charles the Chin is ordering a mocha. And by the luck of the draw he gets one of my favorite baristas - Little Apron Aaron, whom we all remember from the Starbucks Apron Fashion Show episode of Starbucks Drama. And thus begins the pas de deux.
Charles is apparently on the prowl. Rather desperately on the prowl it seems, because he is not even subtle about pressing his suit.
First, he lingers by the register to ask about where Little Apron Aaron has been lately (working the morning shift). Then, there is a VERY unsubtle "caressing" of a biscotti.
I swear by all the powers above, below, sideways and by the almighty Cthulhu himself that I never thought there was a use for Starbucks biscotti before Tuesday night. Apparently, there is one. Clarence Carter HIMSELF would have been proud of this performance. Google it people.
Little Apron Aaron was unmoved. He whipped that iced mocha together in record time and slapped it across the counter and moved over to start cleaning out a frappuccino blender.
The message could not have been more clear. "Hi. Thanks for playing. So sorry the Wheel didn't work out for you. Isn't Vanna lovely tonight? There's some nice parting gifts backstage. Don't let the condiment bar hit you on the way out."
Charles the Chin rallies. His forefathers did, after all, invent blitzkrieg. Little Apron Aaron has no IDEA what he's up against. The might of the German Air Force, apparently. And I don't think he's British. He looks French. He has strange facial hair. And he likes striped shirts. I could totally see him in a glass box doing the Marcel Marceau thing. French it is. And we all know what happened to *them* during the war.
"So, do you still go out a lot," Charles queries. And he flashes his teeth. Big smile. He's still caressing the biscotti. Remember what I said about never, ever buying anything, anywhere, at any time? This is why. And the CDs. Oh Carly Simon. "You're So Vain" would have been perfect for this moment ....
Little Apron Aaron wavers. He finally realizes that he is being not just flirted but cruised, nay, not cruised, but steamrolled right inside the Starbucks in full public view of me, the other barista and some other kid with headphones studying something that involves a laptop and a pile of books over in the corner. "UHHHHHHHHHH." This is how the French felt when the Germans started coming over the Belgian border.
"You know, dat club. De big one, with de dance floor." (I'm trying to do a German accent, but I'm coming off more like the Governator. Forgive me. He was far more subtle than Arnold, but it was still a noticeable accent - and the schmooze made it all that much more insane!)
"Ohhhhhhh," goes the barista. "I don't go out as much any more. I haven't been to the club in a few months." There's a trapped look in his eyes. Or maybe just a "please, don't ask me about palimony." You never know.
"I didn't see you de last few times I vent out," Charles starts. Little Apron Aaron is practically in the sink by now. If I were him, I'd either surrender gracefully or start brewing espresso shots to hurl over the castle walls.
Little Apron Aaron stammers out something about work. Charles the Chin presses his suit and he's actually leaning over the counter. Any farther and he'll can put on an apron and start ringing up customers ....
And I'll never know how this little drama was going to end, although *badly* would likely be my guess, because a fat white man with a screaming child - WHAT IS IT with parents and kids rolling around at 9:30 p.m. these days - burst through the door and rolled up to the counter totally oblivious to the drama that was playing out right in front of us. Just like America. Saving the French then and now. Although this most certainly wasn't the 101st Airborne. Unless you count Delta 941 from Indiana ....
G.I. Normous buys the kid a frappuccino (yes, another one) and Charles the Chin heads off to a meat locker with Eva Braun. Wait, that was Benito Mussolini and the meat hook. At any rate, he leaves. Quietly, without fanfare and without Little Apron Aaron's phone number.
Anyway. I'm totally not inspired, so I'm browsing the Internet when something European walks in - and not the crazy-aggressive female tourists that earned the tweet earlier.
The face isn't classically handsome, and the potential Abercrombie factor is more or less a toss-up. Probably less. Definitely less. And not in that "less is more" kind of way. Not ugly, but more Brunhilde than Heidi Klum. He's more stocky and Germanic than tall, blonde and Norse. And his chin pokes out. Which Holy Roman Emperor was that? Didn't "The Tudors" do an episode? Charles the somethingth.
So Charles the Chin is ordering a mocha. And by the luck of the draw he gets one of my favorite baristas - Little Apron Aaron, whom we all remember from the Starbucks Apron Fashion Show episode of Starbucks Drama. And thus begins the pas de deux.
Charles is apparently on the prowl. Rather desperately on the prowl it seems, because he is not even subtle about pressing his suit.
First, he lingers by the register to ask about where Little Apron Aaron has been lately (working the morning shift). Then, there is a VERY unsubtle "caressing" of a biscotti.
I swear by all the powers above, below, sideways and by the almighty Cthulhu himself that I never thought there was a use for Starbucks biscotti before Tuesday night. Apparently, there is one. Clarence Carter HIMSELF would have been proud of this performance. Google it people.
Little Apron Aaron was unmoved. He whipped that iced mocha together in record time and slapped it across the counter and moved over to start cleaning out a frappuccino blender.
The message could not have been more clear. "Hi. Thanks for playing. So sorry the Wheel didn't work out for you. Isn't Vanna lovely tonight? There's some nice parting gifts backstage. Don't let the condiment bar hit you on the way out."
Charles the Chin rallies. His forefathers did, after all, invent blitzkrieg. Little Apron Aaron has no IDEA what he's up against. The might of the German Air Force, apparently. And I don't think he's British. He looks French. He has strange facial hair. And he likes striped shirts. I could totally see him in a glass box doing the Marcel Marceau thing. French it is. And we all know what happened to *them* during the war.
"So, do you still go out a lot," Charles queries. And he flashes his teeth. Big smile. He's still caressing the biscotti. Remember what I said about never, ever buying anything, anywhere, at any time? This is why. And the CDs. Oh Carly Simon. "You're So Vain" would have been perfect for this moment ....
Little Apron Aaron wavers. He finally realizes that he is being not just flirted but cruised, nay, not cruised, but steamrolled right inside the Starbucks in full public view of me, the other barista and some other kid with headphones studying something that involves a laptop and a pile of books over in the corner. "UHHHHHHHHHH." This is how the French felt when the Germans started coming over the Belgian border.
"You know, dat club. De big one, with de dance floor." (I'm trying to do a German accent, but I'm coming off more like the Governator. Forgive me. He was far more subtle than Arnold, but it was still a noticeable accent - and the schmooze made it all that much more insane!)
"Ohhhhhhh," goes the barista. "I don't go out as much any more. I haven't been to the club in a few months." There's a trapped look in his eyes. Or maybe just a "please, don't ask me about palimony." You never know.
"I didn't see you de last few times I vent out," Charles starts. Little Apron Aaron is practically in the sink by now. If I were him, I'd either surrender gracefully or start brewing espresso shots to hurl over the castle walls.
Little Apron Aaron stammers out something about work. Charles the Chin presses his suit and he's actually leaning over the counter. Any farther and he'll can put on an apron and start ringing up customers ....
And I'll never know how this little drama was going to end, although *badly* would likely be my guess, because a fat white man with a screaming child - WHAT IS IT with parents and kids rolling around at 9:30 p.m. these days - burst through the door and rolled up to the counter totally oblivious to the drama that was playing out right in front of us. Just like America. Saving the French then and now. Although this most certainly wasn't the 101st Airborne. Unless you count Delta 941 from Indiana ....
G.I. Normous buys the kid a frappuccino (yes, another one) and Charles the Chin heads off to a meat locker with Eva Braun. Wait, that was Benito Mussolini and the meat hook. At any rate, he leaves. Quietly, without fanfare and without Little Apron Aaron's phone number.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Heather Has Two Mommies, a Bad Temper and the Swine Flu!
The first hint of crazy comes when the skinny blonde in blue jeans whips in past me at a dead run, gazes INTENTLY at the wall of bagged coffees, searching, searching, searching for something, I never knew what, because she never once opened her mouth to ask any of the four baristas cleaning or making coffee and then heaved a terrific sigh, dodged the hideous orange Starbucks Via display that I'm already sick of looking at and darted out.
I'm starting to compose a Tweet in honor of this particular bit of lunacy when she returns, pushing a very cranky looking child with a look on her face that would melt glass. Sour pickles had nothing on this child. She is one pissed-off first grader (or therebouts).
And Mummy Blondest is waving around a Starbucks gift card.
So. The drama unfolds, like the petals of a construction paper rose on a badly created Mother's Day present.
Mummy Blondest rolls out with a "Do you wanna juice?" in that sickeningly sweet voice people use when they talk to children and they know the kid is pissed off. Miss Priss shakes her head and crosses her arms and gives Mummy the gimlet eye. Please howl. Please. Make my night kiddo. Make my night.
"I wanna MILK!" This comes from Miss Priss with a certain amount of volcanic force, considering she's probably all of about 45 pounds and dressed in a pink jumper and what could very well be a Strawberry Shortcake sun hat. She looks all the world like a fat pink toadstool. And she's acting all the world like a fat pink toad.
"I WANNA MILK" she repeats, louder. And smacks Mummy Blondest on the side of the leg with a little balled up fist. Home training will get you everywhere lady. EV - ER - RE -WHERE. If I'd have ever behaved that way, I'd have gotten a beating right there in the store and another, worse one, when I got home. My grandmother DID. NOT. PLAY!
Instead of going out to find a switch, which my grandmother swears she did once on my recalcitrant uncle, Mummy Blondest returns to her cotton-candy voice and goes "Do you want a white milk or a chocolate milk?"
"WANNA WHITE MILK. WANNA WHITE MILK" No. You "wanna" smack on your tender bottom. Several smacks.
Mummy Blondest is getting agitated now, because she goes UP a decibel, if that is even possible, and squeaks out "I don't see a white milk honey. Whaddabouta chocolate milk?" Tony Soprano woulda been so proud.
The howler monkey picks up one of those over-priced and under-sized boxes of milk. And then Mummy Blondest pushes her toward the cash register, where the barista is staring down in mingled horror and fascinated delight. I'm just staring - period.
Mummy Blondest chides the tiny titan of terror to hand over her milk. "DON'T WANNA." "You need to pay for it," Mummy Blondest tells her, in a saccharine but mock firm tone. She grudgingly holds out the milk, although you can tell she really doesn't want to. I wonder if treats have been taken from her in the past?
The barista scans and gives a total. Now, Mummy Blondest give the gift card she's been holding and gives it to Miss Priss and tells her to "now pay the nice lady."
The transaction is concluded without the standard Starbucks Drama, although I half expected the child to demand "WHY?" she must pay.
Then, we get over to the condiment bar and the real fun starts.
Mummy Blondest is trying to put a full sized Starbucks straw into the carton for her. Tiny Terror is whining, wanting the milk. The box of milk just wants to go home to Bessie, because it never signed up for that whole pasteurization thing - which was totally whack, although the ride through all the tubes *was* nice.
Mummy Blondest finishes and hands the milk over and they leave, practically at a run. I think the fun is over and start to Tweet.
And back they come, for the first time.
Back to the condiment bar they go.
Back to the straw. Mummy Blondest grabs a straw and the box of milk, which sets up a HOWL to dwarf the other howls from the tot. "I WANT MY MILK."
"Just let me put a straw in it," says Mummy Blondest.
"DON'T WANNA BIG STRAW, WANT THIS STRAW. WANNA BROWN STRAW RIGHT NOW." Because the loud child is holding the tiny little straw that is packaged with the milk. Which is totally useless as far as actually getting milk out of the cartoon.
And she's also gripping the previous green Starbucks straw, which she proceeds to throw onto the ground. "I LOSE STRAWS." And she gives a sly grin, as if to say "I'll lose THAT straw if you make me take it."
"You won't lose this straw," Mummy Blondest says, with a whiff of resignation and determination, jamming it into the milk box and slinging it at her. "Here. Let's go." Finally, she's cranky too. Heck, I'd be cranky enough to do a Susan Smith and drive a car into a lake if I lived with that, although it is no fault but her o
I think the fun is over - and settle in to write. The only other thing that darkens the door for the next half-hour is the girl in the zebra-print tube top that strains to keep her "assets" caged and under control. For they are magnificent. And then from somewhere she produces a black and white plaid shirt and throws that on over the tube top. The clash is ... violent. Titanic even. Exceedingly ugly. Stripes and plaids do not mix. Zebra and anything shouldn't mix - not even rice. :)
I'm about three-quarters of the way done with this little post when Howler of Doom rolls back in, complete with the milk box, but with a different mommy in tow. One who is apparently not quite as disinclined to discipline her. She gets another milk box and some cookies and nearly talks Mommy Brunettest into buying her a teddy bear, which is now permanently stained from whatever germs she was hacking into it.
The real drama in the second visit was this milk box. Remember the milk box? The one that had the Starbucks straw in it? It still had one.
Well, Tiny Terror decided it would be fun to start "hiding" the milk box in the display cases and then pushing bags of coffee around to cover it up.
Then, she starts hacking. Like, typical child hack, but she covers her mouth with her hands and then wipes her hands on the bags of coffee. NEVER TOUCH ANYTHING IN PUBLIC AT ANY TIME! Somewhere, at some point, a small child has put ick-germs on it. Or else a dog has licked it.
Then, the child takes out the straw and starts slinging milk around. WOULD YOU LIKE SOME SWINE FLU GERMS WITH YOUR COFFEE BEANS?
Mummy Brunettest sees this and squawks out "GIMME THAT." She grabs the straw, jams it back in and hollers out "Now drink your milk." But Mummy Brunettest still buys a frappuccino and ANOTHER box of milk for the child." I guess she's not lactose intolerant. Just behavior intolerant.
And now THEY are out the door. I'm dying to know. Does Heather have two mommies? I "stretched" my legs to the front of the store and, sure enough, there was Mummy Blondest, sipping on a coffee she must have bought earlier and with a pack of kiddie gear.
My money was on sisters or cousins - which could still have been the case - but who the heck knows these days. Either way, someone needed to blister the tiny titan of terror's backside.
I'm starting to compose a Tweet in honor of this particular bit of lunacy when she returns, pushing a very cranky looking child with a look on her face that would melt glass. Sour pickles had nothing on this child. She is one pissed-off first grader (or therebouts).
And Mummy Blondest is waving around a Starbucks gift card.
So. The drama unfolds, like the petals of a construction paper rose on a badly created Mother's Day present.
Mummy Blondest rolls out with a "Do you wanna juice?" in that sickeningly sweet voice people use when they talk to children and they know the kid is pissed off. Miss Priss shakes her head and crosses her arms and gives Mummy the gimlet eye. Please howl. Please. Make my night kiddo. Make my night.
"I wanna MILK!" This comes from Miss Priss with a certain amount of volcanic force, considering she's probably all of about 45 pounds and dressed in a pink jumper and what could very well be a Strawberry Shortcake sun hat. She looks all the world like a fat pink toadstool. And she's acting all the world like a fat pink toad.
"I WANNA MILK" she repeats, louder. And smacks Mummy Blondest on the side of the leg with a little balled up fist. Home training will get you everywhere lady. EV - ER - RE -WHERE. If I'd have ever behaved that way, I'd have gotten a beating right there in the store and another, worse one, when I got home. My grandmother DID. NOT. PLAY!
Instead of going out to find a switch, which my grandmother swears she did once on my recalcitrant uncle, Mummy Blondest returns to her cotton-candy voice and goes "Do you want a white milk or a chocolate milk?"
"WANNA WHITE MILK. WANNA WHITE MILK" No. You "wanna" smack on your tender bottom. Several smacks.
Mummy Blondest is getting agitated now, because she goes UP a decibel, if that is even possible, and squeaks out "I don't see a white milk honey. Whaddabouta chocolate milk?" Tony Soprano woulda been so proud.
The howler monkey picks up one of those over-priced and under-sized boxes of milk. And then Mummy Blondest pushes her toward the cash register, where the barista is staring down in mingled horror and fascinated delight. I'm just staring - period.
Mummy Blondest chides the tiny titan of terror to hand over her milk. "DON'T WANNA." "You need to pay for it," Mummy Blondest tells her, in a saccharine but mock firm tone. She grudgingly holds out the milk, although you can tell she really doesn't want to. I wonder if treats have been taken from her in the past?
The barista scans and gives a total. Now, Mummy Blondest give the gift card she's been holding and gives it to Miss Priss and tells her to "now pay the nice lady."
The transaction is concluded without the standard Starbucks Drama, although I half expected the child to demand "WHY?" she must pay.
Then, we get over to the condiment bar and the real fun starts.
Mummy Blondest is trying to put a full sized Starbucks straw into the carton for her. Tiny Terror is whining, wanting the milk. The box of milk just wants to go home to Bessie, because it never signed up for that whole pasteurization thing - which was totally whack, although the ride through all the tubes *was* nice.
Mummy Blondest finishes and hands the milk over and they leave, practically at a run. I think the fun is over and start to Tweet.
And back they come, for the first time.
Back to the condiment bar they go.
Back to the straw. Mummy Blondest grabs a straw and the box of milk, which sets up a HOWL to dwarf the other howls from the tot. "I WANT MY MILK."
"Just let me put a straw in it," says Mummy Blondest.
"DON'T WANNA BIG STRAW, WANT THIS STRAW. WANNA BROWN STRAW RIGHT NOW." Because the loud child is holding the tiny little straw that is packaged with the milk. Which is totally useless as far as actually getting milk out of the cartoon.
And she's also gripping the previous green Starbucks straw, which she proceeds to throw onto the ground. "I LOSE STRAWS." And she gives a sly grin, as if to say "I'll lose THAT straw if you make me take it."
"You won't lose this straw," Mummy Blondest says, with a whiff of resignation and determination, jamming it into the milk box and slinging it at her. "Here. Let's go." Finally, she's cranky too. Heck, I'd be cranky enough to do a Susan Smith and drive a car into a lake if I lived with that, although it is no fault but her o
I think the fun is over - and settle in to write. The only other thing that darkens the door for the next half-hour is the girl in the zebra-print tube top that strains to keep her "assets" caged and under control. For they are magnificent. And then from somewhere she produces a black and white plaid shirt and throws that on over the tube top. The clash is ... violent. Titanic even. Exceedingly ugly. Stripes and plaids do not mix. Zebra and anything shouldn't mix - not even rice. :)
I'm about three-quarters of the way done with this little post when Howler of Doom rolls back in, complete with the milk box, but with a different mommy in tow. One who is apparently not quite as disinclined to discipline her. She gets another milk box and some cookies and nearly talks Mommy Brunettest into buying her a teddy bear, which is now permanently stained from whatever germs she was hacking into it.
The real drama in the second visit was this milk box. Remember the milk box? The one that had the Starbucks straw in it? It still had one.
Well, Tiny Terror decided it would be fun to start "hiding" the milk box in the display cases and then pushing bags of coffee around to cover it up.
Then, she starts hacking. Like, typical child hack, but she covers her mouth with her hands and then wipes her hands on the bags of coffee. NEVER TOUCH ANYTHING IN PUBLIC AT ANY TIME! Somewhere, at some point, a small child has put ick-germs on it. Or else a dog has licked it.
Then, the child takes out the straw and starts slinging milk around. WOULD YOU LIKE SOME SWINE FLU GERMS WITH YOUR COFFEE BEANS?
Mummy Brunettest sees this and squawks out "GIMME THAT." She grabs the straw, jams it back in and hollers out "Now drink your milk." But Mummy Brunettest still buys a frappuccino and ANOTHER box of milk for the child." I guess she's not lactose intolerant. Just behavior intolerant.
And now THEY are out the door. I'm dying to know. Does Heather have two mommies? I "stretched" my legs to the front of the store and, sure enough, there was Mummy Blondest, sipping on a coffee she must have bought earlier and with a pack of kiddie gear.
My money was on sisters or cousins - which could still have been the case - but who the heck knows these days. Either way, someone needed to blister the tiny titan of terror's backside.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Starbucks: The Twitter Drama (in three acts)
Sorry. I have work things. I leave you with this pieced-together tale of Starbucks Drama.
I grabbed about 40 tweets with the hashtag #starbucks and wove them into a story. Hope you enjoy this. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.
I really don't know what happened here, but I *REALLY* wish I was up in this Starbucks to see what was going on!
ACT I: #STARBUCKS IS LOVE
@leahjoyalba #Starbucks is love. Spent the night finishing a paper and drinking coffee. A #macchiato, a #cappucino, and a #frappucino, to be exact.
@linnimarie i like #starbucks
@Ecthelia Heaven on earth has a name: #starbucks http://twitpic.com/mht5z (via @SbuxMel)
@OhLissy I should just get a job at #Starbucks. I go there every day, anyway.
@mlharr oh i don't go that often... maybe once every month or two lol #starbucks
@viju_rainwisher #VanillaLatte in #Starbucks is nice! a welcome relief from my routine :)
@impatman i am about to review #Starbucks #Via because it's Thursday and nothing exciting happens on Thursday
@hollymclennan Did #Starbucks' instant coffee #Via campaign actually weaken the brand? http://ow.ly/vOmT
ACT II: IF WISHES WERE HORSES, MOCHAS WOULD FLY!
@aaronvick This whole root canal episode has worn me out & all I did was sit there...I wish #Starbucks delivered... :-/
@LisaMarieWill Man do I want a caramel macchiato. I'll go get one after this class. Unless Starbucks can beam one in to me...#starbucks
@lyracole we should just cut to the chase and open our own #Starbucks LOL :)
@PrincessPayne I need coffee...#Starbucks break.
@dumiranda coffee bound! #starbucks
@mylescurtis I think while I'm out 2moz also i'm gonna have #starbucks try Peter Andres fav drink. Cnt wait.
@erinedesign I'll take a grande non fat extra hot caramel white mocha please lol #starbucks
@BrookeGrasso Going out to #Target and hoping to get a #SignatureCaramelSaltedHotChocolate from #Starbucks! MMMMM!
ACTI III: MOCHA MADNESS
@mbarth76 I have to say... The women in #starbucks are much more snobby today!!! Its a coffee with chocolate in it!!!! Just make it!!!
@candicelee I have turned into that person I hate at #starbucks. My usual: grande no whip half sweet 3 shot white mocha http://twitpic.com/mhgz9
@MzKellyBabay I am so over that *EXPLETIVE DELETED* mother they call #Starbucks!!! I'm gonna start going to coffee bean & tea leaf... They act like they're so busy READ THE TWEET
@MzKellyBabay These *EXPLETIVE DELETED* faces are taking forever w/ my coffee..... I swear I'm about to nuttup in #Starbucks.... READ THE TWEET
@terrisCA Thanks for the subzero environment @starbucks
THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT
I grabbed about 40 tweets with the hashtag #starbucks and wove them into a story. Hope you enjoy this. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.
I really don't know what happened here, but I *REALLY* wish I was up in this Starbucks to see what was going on!
#STARBUCKS
THE TWITTER DRAMA
(in three acts)
(in three acts)
ACT I: #STARBUCKS IS LOVE
@leahjoyalba #Starbucks is love. Spent the night finishing a paper and drinking coffee. A #macchiato, a #cappucino, and a #frappucino, to be exact.
@linnimarie i like #starbucks
@Ecthelia Heaven on earth has a name: #starbucks http://twitpic.com/mht5z (via @SbuxMel)
@OhLissy I should just get a job at #Starbucks. I go there every day, anyway.
@mlharr oh i don't go that often... maybe once every month or two lol #starbucks
@viju_rainwisher #VanillaLatte in #Starbucks is nice! a welcome relief from my routine :)
@impatman i am about to review #Starbucks #Via because it's Thursday and nothing exciting happens on Thursday
@hollymclennan Did #Starbucks' instant coffee #Via campaign actually weaken the brand? http://ow.ly/vOmT
ACT II: IF WISHES WERE HORSES, MOCHAS WOULD FLY!
@aaronvick This whole root canal episode has worn me out & all I did was sit there...I wish #Starbucks delivered... :-/
@LisaMarieWill Man do I want a caramel macchiato. I'll go get one after this class. Unless Starbucks can beam one in to me...#starbucks
@lyracole we should just cut to the chase and open our own #Starbucks LOL :)
@PrincessPayne I need coffee...#Starbucks break.
@dumiranda coffee bound! #starbucks
@mylescurtis I think while I'm out 2moz also i'm gonna have #starbucks try Peter Andres fav drink. Cnt wait.
@erinedesign I'll take a grande non fat extra hot caramel white mocha please lol #starbucks
@BrookeGrasso Going out to #Target and hoping to get a #SignatureCaramelSaltedHotChocolate from #Starbucks! MMMMM!
ACTI III: MOCHA MADNESS
@mbarth76 I have to say... The women in #starbucks are much more snobby today!!! Its a coffee with chocolate in it!!!! Just make it!!!
@candicelee I have turned into that person I hate at #starbucks. My usual: grande no whip half sweet 3 shot white mocha http://twitpic.com/mhgz9
@MzKellyBabay I am so over that *EXPLETIVE DELETED* mother they call #Starbucks!!! I'm gonna start going to coffee bean & tea leaf... They act like they're so busy READ THE TWEET
@MzKellyBabay These *EXPLETIVE DELETED* faces are taking forever w/ my coffee..... I swear I'm about to nuttup in #Starbucks.... READ THE TWEET
@terrisCA Thanks for the subzero environment @starbucks
THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Going to hell on the frappuccino express!
Oh baby. Here we go again.
Yuppies. 10 p.m. and they're doing the 20 Questions over the calorie count in the drinks.
This game never seems to get old. I wonder if there's some sort of mystery shopping company that intentionally tortures baristas with this little game?
For some reason, I think they're traveling missionaries or something. They have that "pursed" look, you know, that "I never get my parts oiled *real* good" look that people have?
Besides, how many husband and wife pairs travel in full business suits? Together? He's got the tan slacks and a light-blue short-sleeve shirt, she's got the pale pink slacks, white top and some sort of sea foam green jacket with gold buttons. It is ugly but looks very "to-do." The only thing missing is a Bible. That might be in his breast pocket.
She's also clutching a magazine that looks suspiciously unlike anything mainstream. You can always tell by the advertising on the back. And whatever is on the back of this is no liquor ad. This magazine doesn't have that "slick" look.
OK. Back to the story. I get distracted so easily. Oh, shiny.
First, they come in and peruse the cold case with all the attention of a fine gourmand going over a fairly interesting cafe menu. We'd like the roasted heretic to start ...
I mean, there's three fruit cups, a couple stale old egg salad sandwiches and a thing of granola in there. What the hell else is there going to be at 10:15 p.m.? A turkey? And of course a full complement of drinks.
So they go through the drinks. First the Starbucks espresso shots. Which obviously do not meet with favor. Then the Odwalla brand orange juices. They don't like those either. Then the Izze teas get a going-over. What the hell are they looking for? Probably something low in sugar. Which is pretty much a strikeout at Starbucks.
They don't like anything in the cold case.
So we move on to quizzing the barista.
What's in the Strawberry Banana smoothie? I would have given money to hear him say something snarky like "watermelons."
They don't like strawberries or bananas. They want the calorie count on the banana chocolate vivanno. And the orange mango banana version.
Then, we move on to the Tazo Tea Lattes. I'm thinking, "Please Shiva, Let's not go through the entire menu. I might learn it if I stick around enough Starbucks with enough 20 Questions customers long enough. Complete with instructions and calorie counts."
We move on to the teas. How many calories? Can they be made with sugar? Which is all fine. I totally understand. If you're looking for something that's low in sugar and high in taste, then you want the best option. I just don't understand why you think you'd find it at a Starbucks at 10:20 p.m. at night.
THAT IS WHAT THE WEB SITE IS FOR!
That's where you find out that you should NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES get whipped cream on a drink. EVER. It will kill you. Dead. Seriously. You might as well drink chocolate syrup straight from the can. Which I totally used to do. I love Hershey's. Chilled cake icing is good too. Tastes like fudge.
Finally, we settle on a cup of coffee. Plain coffee. Nothing added, nothing gained. PLAIN COFFEE.
Twenty minutes, twenty questions, PLAIN COFFEE.
And this genius barista, the one who patiently went through all these questions about sugar content and fat and calories, asks "Room for cream and sugar?"
I near 'bout died. Especially when the man said "Sure."
Now what was the point of all that if you're going to dump cream AND sugar into the coffee? If you're going to hell, you might as well go first class. Get the frappuccino and a slice of cake to go with it!
Yuppies. 10 p.m. and they're doing the 20 Questions over the calorie count in the drinks.
This game never seems to get old. I wonder if there's some sort of mystery shopping company that intentionally tortures baristas with this little game?
For some reason, I think they're traveling missionaries or something. They have that "pursed" look, you know, that "I never get my parts oiled *real* good" look that people have?
Besides, how many husband and wife pairs travel in full business suits? Together? He's got the tan slacks and a light-blue short-sleeve shirt, she's got the pale pink slacks, white top and some sort of sea foam green jacket with gold buttons. It is ugly but looks very "to-do." The only thing missing is a Bible. That might be in his breast pocket.
She's also clutching a magazine that looks suspiciously unlike anything mainstream. You can always tell by the advertising on the back. And whatever is on the back of this is no liquor ad. This magazine doesn't have that "slick" look.
OK. Back to the story. I get distracted so easily. Oh, shiny.
First, they come in and peruse the cold case with all the attention of a fine gourmand going over a fairly interesting cafe menu. We'd like the roasted heretic to start ...
I mean, there's three fruit cups, a couple stale old egg salad sandwiches and a thing of granola in there. What the hell else is there going to be at 10:15 p.m.? A turkey? And of course a full complement of drinks.
So they go through the drinks. First the Starbucks espresso shots. Which obviously do not meet with favor. Then the Odwalla brand orange juices. They don't like those either. Then the Izze teas get a going-over. What the hell are they looking for? Probably something low in sugar. Which is pretty much a strikeout at Starbucks.
They don't like anything in the cold case.
So we move on to quizzing the barista.
What's in the Strawberry Banana smoothie? I would have given money to hear him say something snarky like "watermelons."
They don't like strawberries or bananas. They want the calorie count on the banana chocolate vivanno. And the orange mango banana version.
Then, we move on to the Tazo Tea Lattes. I'm thinking, "Please Shiva, Let's not go through the entire menu. I might learn it if I stick around enough Starbucks with enough 20 Questions customers long enough. Complete with instructions and calorie counts."
We move on to the teas. How many calories? Can they be made with sugar? Which is all fine. I totally understand. If you're looking for something that's low in sugar and high in taste, then you want the best option. I just don't understand why you think you'd find it at a Starbucks at 10:20 p.m. at night.
THAT IS WHAT THE WEB SITE IS FOR!
That's where you find out that you should NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES get whipped cream on a drink. EVER. It will kill you. Dead. Seriously. You might as well drink chocolate syrup straight from the can. Which I totally used to do. I love Hershey's. Chilled cake icing is good too. Tastes like fudge.
Finally, we settle on a cup of coffee. Plain coffee. Nothing added, nothing gained. PLAIN COFFEE.
Twenty minutes, twenty questions, PLAIN COFFEE.
************************
They do this to torture the baristas. It is a secret program. I am convinced. CONVINCED.************************
And this genius barista, the one who patiently went through all these questions about sugar content and fat and calories, asks "Room for cream and sugar?"
I near 'bout died. Especially when the man said "Sure."
Now what was the point of all that if you're going to dump cream AND sugar into the coffee? If you're going to hell, you might as well go first class. Get the frappuccino and a slice of cake to go with it!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
She-Wolf and Man-Child: Blowing Smoke Up Daddy's Cafe Americano
Dilettante children amuse me greatly, mostly because I think longingly of the day when their precious mumsies and daddies WON'T be there to help them pussyfoot their $600 Gucci-clad feet out of whatever jam they've gotten themselves into. Or their kids. Someone, somewhere is going to have to pay those wages of sin. And let me tell you, by the time that particular bill comes due, Lady Karma is going to add one hell of a mandatory tip.
Anyway. I'm chillaxing at the local Starbucks and watching this scene play out on the other side of the plate glass window. I'm in the comfy chair on the other side (INSIDE), because I have zero desire to have cigarette smoke blown into my hair by bored-as-hell teenagers and listen to their prattle. Cicadas chirping would make more sense. And I hate cicadas.
I was trapped for two weeks in Columbia, Missouri, for training on my internship during the confluence of the 13-year and the 17-year cycles and there was a horde, no, a Biblical bloody PLAGUE of cicadas. They were in my hair. They were in my food. They were in EV-ER-Y-THING! They dive-bombed us from the trees. They dive-bombed us from the lamp posts. They jumped from the ground. They attacked at every turn. It wasn't safe to go out at night. They came, from miles around, to congregate, to seek out every source of light, to do the cicada horizontal limbo in as many cicada positions as it was possible. And the shrieking, piercing, whine. With God as my witness, I hope never to hear that sound again. Put me in a room full of small children howling at full blast. And I'd rather have that than the cicadas. And we ALL know how I "dislike" small children.
Back to the story.
Nevertheless, I can follow this entire conversation like I'm sitting at the table listening to them.
There's a girl. Isn't there always? And a boy. Isn't there always? They're both very, very Caucasian. Their money is so old it was probably bred from Roman coins in the time of the pharaohs.
She-Wolf is wearing some sort of tan corduroys with black high-heel boots on. Her top is something pink and low, low cut. ("Apple-bottom jeans, boots with fur...." I love T-Pain)There's low-cut, and then there's this thing that could probably serve as the mascot for a T-Pain video or three. This cut of this falls somewhere between bottom of the boob and the navel. It is trimmed in exceedingly tacky gold lace and doesn't really match her coloring. I thought rich people had OTHER people picking out their clothes for them?
Over this, she's wearing a brown (yes, brown) cardigan. I guess the Salvation Army look is in this season. The outfit just doesn't go together. The colors seem OK, but the fabrics and the overall "look" just don't work. Like a "Project Runway" experiment gone bad. You just know Tim Gunn is gonna come and go "There's a whole lotta look going on here." And her face looks like the surface of the moon. Cheap make-up. Maybe she's undercover?
Man-Child is wearing what looks like Chuck Taylors, except that they give every appearance of being made out of leather instead of cloth. I didn't even know they made such things. His jeans have some fancy designer name stamped on the right rear pocket, but I can't read it. They probably cost more than my car payment. Top this off with a plain white tee ("Hey There, Delilah") and a black Ralph Lauren long-sleeve pullover. And Gucci sunglasses. I can see that logo a mile away.
They're standing - because they're too good to sit on the perfectly good Starbucks wrought-iron chairs, obviously. They might catch something.
She-Wolf is sucking on a frappuccino. (Because obviously, with her bad complexion, what she needs is more ruinous sugar.) Man-child is continuously cocking his wrist back and forth in a suspiciously swishy way, but you never can tell these days.
He's describing something. He gets more animated. He's gesturing. He waves his arms. He's talking about something that doesn't really matter, because he keeps making dismissive motions. Kids these days. Nothing really matters. She starts braying and her mouth flies open. Flecks of spittle and frappuccino fly out.
Man-Child is a study of motion. He practically dances in place. He's never still. He hops from one foot to the other, spins on the chair, jogs in place and does a little spin that makes his shirt tails fly up.
She-Wolf is a languid study of lying in wait. She lounges on the rail, gripping her frappuccino, listening to him talk and studying his moves. Her eyes move from side to side, scouring the terrain for prey. She's on the prowl, for what she doesn't know, but she wants, she needs, she will have. Her laughter comes easily but falsely. You can see it in her cackle, the way her eyes never truly change, the way her mouth moves but her face remains the same.
She-Wolf decides to smoke. She's an inexperienced smoker, that much is apparent from her first puff, which releases acres of thin white smoke into the air. No long-time nico-freak would waste such valuable air on blowing smoke that never got to your lungs.
Worse, she's just blowing smoke all over the kids sitting at the table next to them. Seriously. She could knock out a beehive with the amount of smoke she's putting out. Queen bees would wilt. Hives would fall. Heck, the entire Roman empire would fall. Gibbon could write a few volumes on her alone.
Inhale. Suck it in. Suck. Suck. Suck. MY GOD. She can inhale. Then just blow it out. She can't smoke, as in actually smoke, she's just inhaling into her mouth and blowing it back out. Pretending to smoke to look cool. Kids these days.
Man-Child dances around some more. He's telling something funny, because he gets really animated and is standing up on one of the chairs while he talks and starts whipping his arms around. She-Wolf is looking hungrily at his abs and laughing and blowing smoke and sucking down her frappuccino.
The kids next to her get tired of the smoke blowing directly in to their faces and come to join the conversation. One of them is on crutches. They keep trying to maneuver to avoid the smoke billowing out of She-Wolf. She's producing smoke like a factory. Puff. Puff. ... the magic dragon, lived by the sea... Where was I?
So, not only is She-Wolf blowing smoke into this kid's face, she's destroying his lungs into addition to him having a bum leg. Loverly.
Man-Child continues to dance around. I honestly wonder if maybe he has ADD from being away from his X-Box for too long? He doesn't look like he even know how to be still.
Oh. The party starts to break up. She-Wolf heads off one way with the group that she was previously blowing smoke onto. Maybe they're headed to a cleaners?
Man-Child grabs a watered-down frappuccino off a table where it has been for the last half-hour, sucks it down and dusts it into the trash without even hitting the rim. Ahhh. Basketball. Doesn't look tall enough though.
And then he gets into a brand spanking new black 2009 BMW and peels out of the parking lot. Kids these days.
Anyway. I'm chillaxing at the local Starbucks and watching this scene play out on the other side of the plate glass window. I'm in the comfy chair on the other side (INSIDE), because I have zero desire to have cigarette smoke blown into my hair by bored-as-hell teenagers and listen to their prattle. Cicadas chirping would make more sense. And I hate cicadas.
I was trapped for two weeks in Columbia, Missouri, for training on my internship during the confluence of the 13-year and the 17-year cycles and there was a horde, no, a Biblical bloody PLAGUE of cicadas. They were in my hair. They were in my food. They were in EV-ER-Y-THING! They dive-bombed us from the trees. They dive-bombed us from the lamp posts. They jumped from the ground. They attacked at every turn. It wasn't safe to go out at night. They came, from miles around, to congregate, to seek out every source of light, to do the cicada horizontal limbo in as many cicada positions as it was possible. And the shrieking, piercing, whine. With God as my witness, I hope never to hear that sound again. Put me in a room full of small children howling at full blast. And I'd rather have that than the cicadas. And we ALL know how I "dislike" small children.
Back to the story.
Nevertheless, I can follow this entire conversation like I'm sitting at the table listening to them.
There's a girl. Isn't there always? And a boy. Isn't there always? They're both very, very Caucasian. Their money is so old it was probably bred from Roman coins in the time of the pharaohs.
She-Wolf is wearing some sort of tan corduroys with black high-heel boots on. Her top is something pink and low, low cut. ("Apple-bottom jeans, boots with fur...." I love T-Pain)There's low-cut, and then there's this thing that could probably serve as the mascot for a T-Pain video or three. This cut of this falls somewhere between bottom of the boob and the navel. It is trimmed in exceedingly tacky gold lace and doesn't really match her coloring. I thought rich people had OTHER people picking out their clothes for them?
Over this, she's wearing a brown (yes, brown) cardigan. I guess the Salvation Army look is in this season. The outfit just doesn't go together. The colors seem OK, but the fabrics and the overall "look" just don't work. Like a "Project Runway" experiment gone bad. You just know Tim Gunn is gonna come and go "There's a whole lotta look going on here." And her face looks like the surface of the moon. Cheap make-up. Maybe she's undercover?
Man-Child is wearing what looks like Chuck Taylors, except that they give every appearance of being made out of leather instead of cloth. I didn't even know they made such things. His jeans have some fancy designer name stamped on the right rear pocket, but I can't read it. They probably cost more than my car payment. Top this off with a plain white tee ("Hey There, Delilah") and a black Ralph Lauren long-sleeve pullover. And Gucci sunglasses. I can see that logo a mile away.
They're standing - because they're too good to sit on the perfectly good Starbucks wrought-iron chairs, obviously. They might catch something.
She-Wolf is sucking on a frappuccino. (Because obviously, with her bad complexion, what she needs is more ruinous sugar.) Man-child is continuously cocking his wrist back and forth in a suspiciously swishy way, but you never can tell these days.
He's describing something. He gets more animated. He's gesturing. He waves his arms. He's talking about something that doesn't really matter, because he keeps making dismissive motions. Kids these days. Nothing really matters. She starts braying and her mouth flies open. Flecks of spittle and frappuccino fly out.
Man-Child is a study of motion. He practically dances in place. He's never still. He hops from one foot to the other, spins on the chair, jogs in place and does a little spin that makes his shirt tails fly up.
She-Wolf is a languid study of lying in wait. She lounges on the rail, gripping her frappuccino, listening to him talk and studying his moves. Her eyes move from side to side, scouring the terrain for prey. She's on the prowl, for what she doesn't know, but she wants, she needs, she will have. Her laughter comes easily but falsely. You can see it in her cackle, the way her eyes never truly change, the way her mouth moves but her face remains the same.
She-Wolf decides to smoke. She's an inexperienced smoker, that much is apparent from her first puff, which releases acres of thin white smoke into the air. No long-time nico-freak would waste such valuable air on blowing smoke that never got to your lungs.
Worse, she's just blowing smoke all over the kids sitting at the table next to them. Seriously. She could knock out a beehive with the amount of smoke she's putting out. Queen bees would wilt. Hives would fall. Heck, the entire Roman empire would fall. Gibbon could write a few volumes on her alone.
Inhale. Suck it in. Suck. Suck. Suck. MY GOD. She can inhale. Then just blow it out. She can't smoke, as in actually smoke, she's just inhaling into her mouth and blowing it back out. Pretending to smoke to look cool. Kids these days.
Man-Child dances around some more. He's telling something funny, because he gets really animated and is standing up on one of the chairs while he talks and starts whipping his arms around. She-Wolf is looking hungrily at his abs and laughing and blowing smoke and sucking down her frappuccino.
The kids next to her get tired of the smoke blowing directly in to their faces and come to join the conversation. One of them is on crutches. They keep trying to maneuver to avoid the smoke billowing out of She-Wolf. She's producing smoke like a factory. Puff. Puff. ... the magic dragon, lived by the sea... Where was I?
So, not only is She-Wolf blowing smoke into this kid's face, she's destroying his lungs into addition to him having a bum leg. Loverly.
Man-Child continues to dance around. I honestly wonder if maybe he has ADD from being away from his X-Box for too long? He doesn't look like he even know how to be still.
Oh. The party starts to break up. She-Wolf heads off one way with the group that she was previously blowing smoke onto. Maybe they're headed to a cleaners?
Man-Child grabs a watered-down frappuccino off a table where it has been for the last half-hour, sucks it down and dusts it into the trash without even hitting the rim. Ahhh. Basketball. Doesn't look tall enough though.
And then he gets into a brand spanking new black 2009 BMW and peels out of the parking lot. Kids these days.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Does this latte come with toilet paper?
Endless drama at the Ganja Starbucks tonight. Endless drama.
First, there's the eight-man wrecking crew outside that is dressed in enough fake bling to put a Claire's Accessories to SHAME. One is wearing his pants so low and his boxers so high that I can see the crack of his ..... At least they're cute.
Oh. Now they have the munchies. They're coming inside in droves to get snacks. Dudes. It is 9:45 p.m. at the Starbucks. Everything has been picked over, picked over again and then left out for the corbies. Seriously. Don't wrinkle your nose at the egg salad sandwiches. There's a reason it is the only thing left. You'll eat it and be happy - or walk down to the Shell station. He buys two egg salad sandwiches and a fistful of biscotti. I don't actually know that I've ever seen anyone actually buy biscotti before. It just seems to exist. Huh. When in need ...
On second base - but DEFINITELY NOT getting to MY second base is this creep-o-licious old dude in the corner. *shudder*
He has an iPhone with the speakers turned up to the max - I can hear it from ten feet away even though he has the earbuds in. He was whanging away on an old iBook when I got in, but he shut that off. He's watching some sort of video on the iPhone - and this is worse - he's laughing uncontrollably.
Even the stoner-boy with his pants falling off his skinny rear because of his two phones - now tell me, what could THAT have been for - kept staring.
Which is creepy. Because the place is still, except for me and one barista who's babysitting the drive- thru (the other three are outside, doing who the hell knows what). So, there's only my keyboard clicks and soft cleaning noises when out of the blue comes these bursts of UNCONTROLLABLE laughter. Guffaws and belly laughs. You'd think he was watching old episodes of "The Honeymooners" - which he may have been.
Maybe he was watching porn. Maybe he was reading Starbucks Drama and imagining that I was in a coffee shop in a galaxy far, far away, talking about some other creepy old dude with an iBook and an iPhone and enough B.O. to drop an elephant in its tracks. Thank you Kali he's gone.
Eww. Clean up after yourself old dude. He just walked away and left his stanky coffee cup sitting on the table. At least have the grace to TAKE IT BACK TO THE COUNTER. They make your coffee. They're not your maids. And he earns a dirty look from the manager for that one. I would not piss this dude off. He has connections to the Estonian youth mafia right outside the door. They're hopped up on who knows what and would probably pawn his electronics, his car and maybe his liver and not bat an eyelash.
Now we get to the good, good stuff.
I walked in and there's a manager on the floor in front of the safe. The safes in Starbucks stores are in such *exposed* locations, too - almost literally two steps from customers and not behind a locked door or anything. I would be so scared to be counting that money in view of customers. If you know where they are, you know exactly what they're doing. The cameras are there to protect the MONEY - not protect you from physical harm.
There's another off-duty barista - its like a siren call, the coffee grounds call the green-aproned ones like moths to a flame even on the days they don't have to work. I have a theory that they put something in the pastry. I've seen baristas scarf down the pastries like they're manna from heaven - then again, that may be just because they're free. Who knows?
Anyway. The off-duty one - who I always see here and who knows my drink order - but I never actually see in a green apron and behind the counter - is leaning on a stack of toilet paper and screaming over the counter at the one trying to count the safe.
Something about a girlfriend. Hell if I know. Then it devolves into why the one on the floor is crying.
Crying from laughter apparently, because the off-duty barista is taking rolls of toilet paper and throwing them at her. Yes. Cash security is a top priority at this Starbucks.
There's also a pack of Marlboros lying on the counter. Because Starbucks is so concerned with image.
I go over, just to be nosy, and the manager walks up, and snarks, "I've hear of people crying over money, but never people crying OVER money." The two girls crack up again, until the one trying to count the safe is lying completely out on the floor, on her side, with the safe wide open and a couple of rolls of toilet paper around her. A glorious, glorious picture of a sober, responsible Starbucks barista. These are the people who serve your food. Just as soon as they're done playing pattycake with wrinkled dollar bills and grimy tile floors!
Don't ask "where has my food been?" Ask "Where has my BARISTA been!"
First, there's the eight-man wrecking crew outside that is dressed in enough fake bling to put a Claire's Accessories to SHAME. One is wearing his pants so low and his boxers so high that I can see the crack of his ..... At least they're cute.
Oh. Now they have the munchies. They're coming inside in droves to get snacks. Dudes. It is 9:45 p.m. at the Starbucks. Everything has been picked over, picked over again and then left out for the corbies. Seriously. Don't wrinkle your nose at the egg salad sandwiches. There's a reason it is the only thing left. You'll eat it and be happy - or walk down to the Shell station. He buys two egg salad sandwiches and a fistful of biscotti. I don't actually know that I've ever seen anyone actually buy biscotti before. It just seems to exist. Huh. When in need ...
On second base - but DEFINITELY NOT getting to MY second base is this creep-o-licious old dude in the corner. *shudder*
He has an iPhone with the speakers turned up to the max - I can hear it from ten feet away even though he has the earbuds in. He was whanging away on an old iBook when I got in, but he shut that off. He's watching some sort of video on the iPhone - and this is worse - he's laughing uncontrollably.
Even the stoner-boy with his pants falling off his skinny rear because of his two phones - now tell me, what could THAT have been for - kept staring.
Which is creepy. Because the place is still, except for me and one barista who's babysitting the drive- thru (the other three are outside, doing who the hell knows what). So, there's only my keyboard clicks and soft cleaning noises when out of the blue comes these bursts of UNCONTROLLABLE laughter. Guffaws and belly laughs. You'd think he was watching old episodes of "The Honeymooners" - which he may have been.
Maybe he was watching porn. Maybe he was reading Starbucks Drama and imagining that I was in a coffee shop in a galaxy far, far away, talking about some other creepy old dude with an iBook and an iPhone and enough B.O. to drop an elephant in its tracks. Thank you Kali he's gone.
Eww. Clean up after yourself old dude. He just walked away and left his stanky coffee cup sitting on the table. At least have the grace to TAKE IT BACK TO THE COUNTER. They make your coffee. They're not your maids. And he earns a dirty look from the manager for that one. I would not piss this dude off. He has connections to the Estonian youth mafia right outside the door. They're hopped up on who knows what and would probably pawn his electronics, his car and maybe his liver and not bat an eyelash.
Now we get to the good, good stuff.
I walked in and there's a manager on the floor in front of the safe. The safes in Starbucks stores are in such *exposed* locations, too - almost literally two steps from customers and not behind a locked door or anything. I would be so scared to be counting that money in view of customers. If you know where they are, you know exactly what they're doing. The cameras are there to protect the MONEY - not protect you from physical harm.
There's another off-duty barista - its like a siren call, the coffee grounds call the green-aproned ones like moths to a flame even on the days they don't have to work. I have a theory that they put something in the pastry. I've seen baristas scarf down the pastries like they're manna from heaven - then again, that may be just because they're free. Who knows?
Anyway. The off-duty one - who I always see here and who knows my drink order - but I never actually see in a green apron and behind the counter - is leaning on a stack of toilet paper and screaming over the counter at the one trying to count the safe.
Something about a girlfriend. Hell if I know. Then it devolves into why the one on the floor is crying.
Crying from laughter apparently, because the off-duty barista is taking rolls of toilet paper and throwing them at her. Yes. Cash security is a top priority at this Starbucks.
There's also a pack of Marlboros lying on the counter. Because Starbucks is so concerned with image.
I go over, just to be nosy, and the manager walks up, and snarks, "I've hear of people crying over money, but never people crying OVER money." The two girls crack up again, until the one trying to count the safe is lying completely out on the floor, on her side, with the safe wide open and a couple of rolls of toilet paper around her. A glorious, glorious picture of a sober, responsible Starbucks barista. These are the people who serve your food. Just as soon as they're done playing pattycake with wrinkled dollar bills and grimy tile floors!
Don't ask "where has my food been?" Ask "Where has my BARISTA been!"
Saturday, October 17, 2009
This Week On Starbucks Drama: Oct. 12 - Oct. 15
- The incredibly insane creature that is the Mermaid Mumbler made her first re-appearance on these pages. She read the New York Times, she got a bag for one fruit and cheese tray, she got "hrrrumphed" by a cranky nurse in purple scrubs and then she left the Starbucks without her drinks. Yes. This little Mermaid Mumbler had none. Until she burst back through the door screaming "MY DRINKS, MY DRINKS!" "Da plane, da plane, da plane come boss." No just the ambulance and men in white coats to take you away!
- There was the lovely episode with Exercise Monkey. I still maintain that he shaves his arms. No one is that smooth all over. NO ONE. And he liked to play with the drawstring on his exercise shorts just a leeeeeeetle bit too much for my comfort. It definitely spoke of a fetish somewhere, for something. However, Exercise Monkey is probably still in complete denial of the fact that just because Starbucks is liquid, it isn't "fast food." Dude. LIQUID CRACK. And Tall Tina probably wants to brain him for making her recite the calorie counts of every drink combination they have.
- Oh. There was the adventure I've dubbed "Sugar-licious." Her: TEN PUMP VENTI CARAMEL LATTE; Him: SIX PUMP TALL AMERICANO; Howler Monkey: VENTI CHOCOLATE CHIP FRAPPUCCINO WITH EXTRA CHOCOLATE CHIPS. At 8:30 p.m. at night. Obviously, no one planned to sleep, especially giving a child that much sugar. I still believe it was some sort of dental experiment and they secretly hate their dentist and want to produce cavities.
- And finally, my encounter with the hell-beast WOACAs who spent nineteen hours debating the best place to take a photo INSIDE A STARBUCKS at the top of their lungs. They cleared an entire Starbucks of everything except the baristas and a hood-rat with earphones in less time than it takes a fat girl to eat a donut. And then debated whether or not to go spend a penny in the loudest terms possible. Shiva save us all from the mind of the American tourist.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A wrinkle a day keeps the hearing aid away
The time isn't important. Neither is the place. Well, it *was* a Starbucks. That much should be obvious. We ARE called Starbucks Drama, after all.
I'm TRYING to drink my venti iced mocha, update the cruel and uncaring world on the doings at Starbucks via my handy cell phone and in general collect my shattered wits when out of the clear blue yonder comes a screech that would wake the dead. Hell, it would have woke the undead, the newly dead, the not-yet-dead and probably anything Chuck Norris kills by looking the other way - said look traveling the circumference of the earth and catching the unfortunate creature in the rear.
"SHOULD I STAND OVER HERE OR OVER HERE?"
"SHOULD I HOLD MY COFFEE?"
"WHAT DO YOU THINK?"
I pray to the demented gods that I worship - namely coffee, chocolate and caffeine - that whatever is making those squawks isn't talking to me and look up.
It isn't. The collection of wrinkles that is making those noises is wearing a lime green sun visor, has a fanny pack and what can only be described as orthopedic walking shoes. She's holding an iced coffee of some sort and is holding a VERY loud and VERY public conversation with her two companions, both of whom differ from her only in color of sun visors. And one has a camera. WOACAs. In the flesh.
They're determined to take a tourist photo INSIDE this Starbucks.
Not to matter that this is the first relatively *cool* day we've had in this part of Florida for a week. Not to matter that we're less than a mile from beaches that people FLY FROM EUROPE TO VISIT. Not to mention that THERE IS NOTHING TO TAKE A PHOTO OF except a wall and some battered chairs.
"SHOULD I MOVE OVER BY THIS BAR THING?"
"SHOULD I KEEP HOLDING MY COFFEE?" Didn't we ask this one already?
"WHAT'S GOING TO BE THE BEST PLACE FOR THIS?"
Cabinet debates are decided with less fervor. And less volume, unless someone takes off a shoe and does a Nikita Khrushchev. Somehow, I don't see Janet Napolitano and Hilda Solis getting into a fight over Jimmy Choos in the White House. Michelle Obama has cornered the market on fashion anyway. Except for belts - someone should REALLY tell the woman to stop wearing those high-waisted belts. Hideously ugly on her.
"WHAT ABOUT OVER HERE?"
"DOES THE LIGHT LOOK GOOD FROM HERE?" What the hell? Are you painting the Mona Lisa? You're taking a picture that NO ONE will ever look at again. Inside a Starbucks. Are you going to put it on a Christmas card?
"WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITH MY COFFEE?" Drink it. Or I have a few suggestions. Most of those *ARE* anatomically possible - at least with the coffee. The cup? Not so much.
They move. They snap a photo. They move. They snap a few more. I swear to Kali, if I hadn't see the fanny packs, I might have thought this was an elaborate set-up for movie producers or something. That, and the fact that they were screaming at the top of their lungs the entire time. I actually looked for a camera crew when I went outside.
"OH THIS IS SO CUTE. I LOVE THIS PLACE." You've never been in a Starbucks? My god. Where the hell did you come from? Actually, I should reserve judgment on that. My tiny hometown still doesn't have one. The Wal-mart there used to close at 8 p.m. It would stay open until 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve and people though that was big news. Does any Wal-mart anywhere ever close now?
"WHERE SHOULD WE STAND? CAN WE MOVE THESE TABLES? WHAT ABOUT OVER THERE?"
"LET ME DRINK MY COFFEE AND WE'LL TAKE A PICTURE"
I have to admit. I couldn't take it. And my tolerance for stupidity used to be extremely high. One day, I'll reveal all. But it was mostly the screaming. The ear-piercing shriek of these banshees was just inconceivable. This is an awful analogy, but slap a small child. Listen to the whine. Then slap it again. And again. Just, the whine. The eardrum-penetrating whine. In triplicate. And it was hopped up on sugar and caffeine. Oh. It gets better.
"WHERE ARE WE GONNA EAT?"
"LET'S TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE"
"WHAT ABOUT OVER HERE"
"I'M NOT DONE WITH MY COFFEE."
"LET ME FINISH MY COFFEE BEFORE YOU TAKE ANOTHER ONE."
"WHAT ARE WE DOING JUST STANDING HERE?" I wondered the EXACT SAME THING!
I left. I went to the bathroom and left. And I could still hear them. Past twenty feet of LOUD coffee shop space and through a storage closet and two walls. I COULD STILL HEAR THEM.
"LET'S MOVE OVER HERE AND TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE."
"DO YOU LIKE THIS COFFEE? I DON'T KNOW IF I LIKE THIS COFFEE."
"DON'T USE THAT ONE. I WASN'T SMILING. TAKE ANOTHER ONE."
I washed my hands and ran. So had most of the coffee shop at that point. Two old guys trying to read the paper had packed it in. A touristy-looking couple cashed in their chips as well. The squawkers even managed to drive away the bratty party of kids that wanted six free waters. There was just one hood-rat-looking kid left - and he had headphones on.
As I left, I heard a final squawk. Through the door, mind you. Through a solid wood and glass door. It was like I was standing right next to her and she was screaming.
And this is what she screamed.
"I GUESS I SHOULD GO TO THE BATHROOM BEFORE WE LEAVE. I HAVE TO PEE ANYWAY."
No. Really. America did not need to know that. I never did see a camera crew.
I'm TRYING to drink my venti iced mocha, update the cruel and uncaring world on the doings at Starbucks via my handy cell phone and in general collect my shattered wits when out of the clear blue yonder comes a screech that would wake the dead. Hell, it would have woke the undead, the newly dead, the not-yet-dead and probably anything Chuck Norris kills by looking the other way - said look traveling the circumference of the earth and catching the unfortunate creature in the rear.
"SHOULD I STAND OVER HERE OR OVER HERE?"
"SHOULD I HOLD MY COFFEE?"
"WHAT DO YOU THINK?"
I pray to the demented gods that I worship - namely coffee, chocolate and caffeine - that whatever is making those squawks isn't talking to me and look up.
It isn't. The collection of wrinkles that is making those noises is wearing a lime green sun visor, has a fanny pack and what can only be described as orthopedic walking shoes. She's holding an iced coffee of some sort and is holding a VERY loud and VERY public conversation with her two companions, both of whom differ from her only in color of sun visors. And one has a camera. WOACAs. In the flesh.
They're determined to take a tourist photo INSIDE this Starbucks.
Not to matter that this is the first relatively *cool* day we've had in this part of Florida for a week. Not to matter that we're less than a mile from beaches that people FLY FROM EUROPE TO VISIT. Not to mention that THERE IS NOTHING TO TAKE A PHOTO OF except a wall and some battered chairs.
"SHOULD I MOVE OVER BY THIS BAR THING?"
"SHOULD I KEEP HOLDING MY COFFEE?" Didn't we ask this one already?
"WHAT'S GOING TO BE THE BEST PLACE FOR THIS?"
Cabinet debates are decided with less fervor. And less volume, unless someone takes off a shoe and does a Nikita Khrushchev. Somehow, I don't see Janet Napolitano and Hilda Solis getting into a fight over Jimmy Choos in the White House. Michelle Obama has cornered the market on fashion anyway. Except for belts - someone should REALLY tell the woman to stop wearing those high-waisted belts. Hideously ugly on her.
"WHAT ABOUT OVER HERE?"
"DOES THE LIGHT LOOK GOOD FROM HERE?" What the hell? Are you painting the Mona Lisa? You're taking a picture that NO ONE will ever look at again. Inside a Starbucks. Are you going to put it on a Christmas card?
"WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITH MY COFFEE?" Drink it. Or I have a few suggestions. Most of those *ARE* anatomically possible - at least with the coffee. The cup? Not so much.
They move. They snap a photo. They move. They snap a few more. I swear to Kali, if I hadn't see the fanny packs, I might have thought this was an elaborate set-up for movie producers or something. That, and the fact that they were screaming at the top of their lungs the entire time. I actually looked for a camera crew when I went outside.
"OH THIS IS SO CUTE. I LOVE THIS PLACE." You've never been in a Starbucks? My god. Where the hell did you come from? Actually, I should reserve judgment on that. My tiny hometown still doesn't have one. The Wal-mart there used to close at 8 p.m. It would stay open until 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve and people though that was big news. Does any Wal-mart anywhere ever close now?
"WHERE SHOULD WE STAND? CAN WE MOVE THESE TABLES? WHAT ABOUT OVER THERE?"
"LET ME DRINK MY COFFEE AND WE'LL TAKE A PICTURE"
I have to admit. I couldn't take it. And my tolerance for stupidity used to be extremely high. One day, I'll reveal all. But it was mostly the screaming. The ear-piercing shriek of these banshees was just inconceivable. This is an awful analogy, but slap a small child. Listen to the whine. Then slap it again. And again. Just, the whine. The eardrum-penetrating whine. In triplicate. And it was hopped up on sugar and caffeine. Oh. It gets better.
"WHERE ARE WE GONNA EAT?"
"LET'S TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE"
"WHAT ABOUT OVER HERE"
"I'M NOT DONE WITH MY COFFEE."
"LET ME FINISH MY COFFEE BEFORE YOU TAKE ANOTHER ONE."
"WHAT ARE WE DOING JUST STANDING HERE?" I wondered the EXACT SAME THING!
I left. I went to the bathroom and left. And I could still hear them. Past twenty feet of LOUD coffee shop space and through a storage closet and two walls. I COULD STILL HEAR THEM.
"LET'S MOVE OVER HERE AND TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE."
"DO YOU LIKE THIS COFFEE? I DON'T KNOW IF I LIKE THIS COFFEE."
"DON'T USE THAT ONE. I WASN'T SMILING. TAKE ANOTHER ONE."
I washed my hands and ran. So had most of the coffee shop at that point. Two old guys trying to read the paper had packed it in. A touristy-looking couple cashed in their chips as well. The squawkers even managed to drive away the bratty party of kids that wanted six free waters. There was just one hood-rat-looking kid left - and he had headphones on.
As I left, I heard a final squawk. Through the door, mind you. Through a solid wood and glass door. It was like I was standing right next to her and she was screaming.
And this is what she screamed.
"I GUESS I SHOULD GO TO THE BATHROOM BEFORE WE LEAVE. I HAVE TO PEE ANYWAY."
No. Really. America did not need to know that. I never did see a camera crew.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Sugar-licious
Now, we've established that I'm in no way an exercise freak or a health nut. But I've never ordered ten shots of anything in a Starbucks drink. The most I've EVER done is four shots of espresso. And in living memory, I can't recall requesting extra shots of syrup.
Well children, I'm here to report that sugar freaks are FAR worse than caffeine freaks.
Caffeine freaks are understandable. I've been one for most of my adult life. I like sugar, but I can satisfy that craving through chocolate, pastry, fruit, raisins or any number of outlets - not just refined sugar.
My comfy chair was occupied - yet again - when I entered the Starbucks. So, I decided to camp out near the area where they hand off the drinks. I've learned these past few weeks that you need to be near the places where baristas and customers talk to get the *good* dirt. :)
The drawback to this particular location - as I'm discovering right now - is that it is immediately under the speaker. Which right now is pumping out something that sounds suspiciously like a funeral dirge. Where's Carly Simon when you REALLY need her? Or the Beatles? I miss the Beatles at Starbucks.
Anyway. The point of all this. I'm like four feet from the handoff bar when I hear things that should never be heard.
"TEN PUMP VENTI CARAMEL LATTE"
My eyes make that googly thing - o_0 - and I'm sure I probably stared at her like I normally do. She looked normal, so I assumed this was a temporary glitch in the matrix, knocked out a quick but amazed Tweet and went back to my truly excellent chicken pad Thai takeout.
Then, Tall Tina pushes over a VENTI CHOCOLATE CHIP FRAPPUCCINO WITH EXTRA CHOCOLATE CHIPS - for a seven year old girl. At 8:30 p.m. at night. This child was going to be bouncing off the walls in a few hours.
And then delivers the coup de grace.
A SIX PUMP TALL AMERICANO. Now. I actually had to ask what the hell this one was. An Americano, according to Starbucks Drinks Simplified, is "Espresso diluted with hot water until it's roughly the strength of regular coffee." Pumps, in this case, are pure sugar in the drink before they put any MORE in on the condiment bar.
So, dude wanted six full pumps of straight-up sugar in his drink.
I seriously do not think any of them were planning on sleeping at any point in the next days. The sugar alone. It makes my teeth hurt.
Well children, I'm here to report that sugar freaks are FAR worse than caffeine freaks.
Caffeine freaks are understandable. I've been one for most of my adult life. I like sugar, but I can satisfy that craving through chocolate, pastry, fruit, raisins or any number of outlets - not just refined sugar.
My comfy chair was occupied - yet again - when I entered the Starbucks. So, I decided to camp out near the area where they hand off the drinks. I've learned these past few weeks that you need to be near the places where baristas and customers talk to get the *good* dirt. :)
The drawback to this particular location - as I'm discovering right now - is that it is immediately under the speaker. Which right now is pumping out something that sounds suspiciously like a funeral dirge. Where's Carly Simon when you REALLY need her? Or the Beatles? I miss the Beatles at Starbucks.
Anyway. The point of all this. I'm like four feet from the handoff bar when I hear things that should never be heard.
"TEN PUMP VENTI CARAMEL LATTE"
My eyes make that googly thing - o_0 - and I'm sure I probably stared at her like I normally do. She looked normal, so I assumed this was a temporary glitch in the matrix, knocked out a quick but amazed Tweet and went back to my truly excellent chicken pad Thai takeout.
Then, Tall Tina pushes over a VENTI CHOCOLATE CHIP FRAPPUCCINO WITH EXTRA CHOCOLATE CHIPS - for a seven year old girl. At 8:30 p.m. at night. This child was going to be bouncing off the walls in a few hours.
And then delivers the coup de grace.
A SIX PUMP TALL AMERICANO. Now. I actually had to ask what the hell this one was. An Americano, according to Starbucks Drinks Simplified, is "Espresso diluted with hot water until it's roughly the strength of regular coffee." Pumps, in this case, are pure sugar in the drink before they put any MORE in on the condiment bar.
So, dude wanted six full pumps of straight-up sugar in his drink.
I seriously do not think any of them were planning on sleeping at any point in the next days. The sugar alone. It makes my teeth hurt.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Exercise those mochas a-way!
Maybe it is because I've always been, shall we say, "less than healthy," meaning I eat fast food when and where I want - that I don't fundamentally understand the exercise freak types that COME to a fast-food place and then do the point-and-stare 20 Questions routine with the menu.
I'm not against eating healthy. Kali forbid, I was forced to dramatically curtail my sugar and fat intake this year after being diagnosed with diabetes - but I'm not a psychotic freak at restaurants. Other than being my normal "I WILL NOT EAT THAT IF YOU PAID ME!" self - but that has nothing to do with being healthy. My dislike of rabbit food and raw fish is perfectly normal.
Anyway. I'm recovering from the unpardonable sin of missing what I can only assume was some sort of male hen party (I walk in and there's seven older dudes all standing around waiting for iced coffees flirting with each other). I barely order and get my laptop out and they're gone. Now, I regret the time I spent getting that chicken sandwich.
And then I'm rewarded all the same.
Exercise Monkey rolls in. He is tall and fit and not a day under 50. He might LOOK young, especially because he's as firm as a new mattress, but there is gray in them there temples.
Exercise Monkey is all kitted out in head-to-toe Adidas. Black Adidas running shorts. Crisp white Adidas tee. Adidas sneakers and probably Adidas socks, although I can't see that far. My vision is failing and I'm not even 40. The backpack, for whatever reason, is something else - which I can't make out and I can't find on Google.
He is tall, like six feet, two inches. He is skinny. More lean than heroin chic, but definitely not a porker. And I swear that he shaves his arms. No hair. Anywhere. And then he decides to stand there at the register and play with the drawstring on his shorts to show off his perfectly toned stomach.
All this is happening while he's quizzing the barista - Tall Tina - on the caloric content of the iced teas. Then, not content with knowing the calorie content, we move on to sugar vs. no-sugar vs. low-sugar.
Again, and I've said this before. You're inside a FAST FOOD establishment. Granted, a fast food place that might pretend to all outward appearances to be different than a McDonalds, and serves better food, but it is STILL FAST FOOD. Although the coffee is miles better. And the employees speak English and smile.
So. Shaverboy is doing the 20 Questions routine on the drinks menu - and finally decides on a no-sugar green tea. Really dude. I don't understand WHY you rolled up into a Starbucks in the first place if you're just going to sniff and sniff at the menu? And quit playing with your navel! How much belly-button lint CAN YOU HAVE?
About this time, his little friend comes in. Predictably, a woman. A YOUNG woman. Brunette, surprisingly, not the to-be-expected blonde. She must be 20 years younger, although that puts her at 30-ish - which is old enough to have the beginnings of cottage cheese thighs.
Which I can see QUITE well through her sheer black exercise shorts. Every large inch of her thighs. Things that have been seen cannot be unseen! She's clad in head-to-toe Adidas too - well, if you count an Adidas running top, the type with the shoulder blades left open, as a top. There's a sports bra as well, but that was it, other than socks and, of course, a pair of Adidas running shoes. Makes me wonder if there was a contract or something?
But she gets in and we get a REPEAT of the 20 Questions game - except that she wants a pastry and there's no "fat free" option available to her at 8:30 p.m. at night. And she's clearly upset. Seriously, I am totally on board with your right to have choices - but you're the one with dietary restrictions. Not the Starbucks.
She gets a tall coffee to match his green tea. No sugar, no fun!
They leave, presumably in search of other calorie-resistant couples to run marathons with. What is the point of living past 100 if you're miserable doing it?
I'm not against eating healthy. Kali forbid, I was forced to dramatically curtail my sugar and fat intake this year after being diagnosed with diabetes - but I'm not a psychotic freak at restaurants. Other than being my normal "I WILL NOT EAT THAT IF YOU PAID ME!" self - but that has nothing to do with being healthy. My dislike of rabbit food and raw fish is perfectly normal.
Anyway. I'm recovering from the unpardonable sin of missing what I can only assume was some sort of male hen party (I walk in and there's seven older dudes all standing around waiting for iced coffees flirting with each other). I barely order and get my laptop out and they're gone. Now, I regret the time I spent getting that chicken sandwich.
And then I'm rewarded all the same.
Exercise Monkey rolls in. He is tall and fit and not a day under 50. He might LOOK young, especially because he's as firm as a new mattress, but there is gray in them there temples.
Exercise Monkey is all kitted out in head-to-toe Adidas. Black Adidas running shorts. Crisp white Adidas tee. Adidas sneakers and probably Adidas socks, although I can't see that far. My vision is failing and I'm not even 40. The backpack, for whatever reason, is something else - which I can't make out and I can't find on Google.
He is tall, like six feet, two inches. He is skinny. More lean than heroin chic, but definitely not a porker. And I swear that he shaves his arms. No hair. Anywhere. And then he decides to stand there at the register and play with the drawstring on his shorts to show off his perfectly toned stomach.
All this is happening while he's quizzing the barista - Tall Tina - on the caloric content of the iced teas. Then, not content with knowing the calorie content, we move on to sugar vs. no-sugar vs. low-sugar.
Again, and I've said this before. You're inside a FAST FOOD establishment. Granted, a fast food place that might pretend to all outward appearances to be different than a McDonalds, and serves better food, but it is STILL FAST FOOD. Although the coffee is miles better. And the employees speak English and smile.
So. Shaverboy is doing the 20 Questions routine on the drinks menu - and finally decides on a no-sugar green tea. Really dude. I don't understand WHY you rolled up into a Starbucks in the first place if you're just going to sniff and sniff at the menu? And quit playing with your navel! How much belly-button lint CAN YOU HAVE?
About this time, his little friend comes in. Predictably, a woman. A YOUNG woman. Brunette, surprisingly, not the to-be-expected blonde. She must be 20 years younger, although that puts her at 30-ish - which is old enough to have the beginnings of cottage cheese thighs.
Which I can see QUITE well through her sheer black exercise shorts. Every large inch of her thighs. Things that have been seen cannot be unseen! She's clad in head-to-toe Adidas too - well, if you count an Adidas running top, the type with the shoulder blades left open, as a top. There's a sports bra as well, but that was it, other than socks and, of course, a pair of Adidas running shoes. Makes me wonder if there was a contract or something?
But she gets in and we get a REPEAT of the 20 Questions game - except that she wants a pastry and there's no "fat free" option available to her at 8:30 p.m. at night. And she's clearly upset. Seriously, I am totally on board with your right to have choices - but you're the one with dietary restrictions. Not the Starbucks.
She gets a tall coffee to match his green tea. No sugar, no fun!
They leave, presumably in search of other calorie-resistant couples to run marathons with. What is the point of living past 100 if you're miserable doing it?
Monday, October 12, 2009
The siren of the seven seas sets sail without her drink!
Mermaid Mumbler is back again. She must work around her. She's a much of a habituee as I am, although she's always proclaiming to be in a terrible hurry - and always stopping to chat with the baristas or look at the same coffee mugs that were there yesterday and the day before.
Tonight, Mermaid Mumbler is wearing black stretch legging somethings and a bright pink top. This is an eye-searing pink - milk of magnesia pink - Shelby Eatonton Latcherie would call this color "blush," while most grown men would simply run.
Like I said, those hips are unmistakable. Plus, she lumbers. There's no other word for it - it is definitely a "lumber." And we're not talking wood here.
She comes in right behind a super-skinny executive type that's working late - or maybe just "working late" - I can't quite tell with the three-inch heels, although the dress is fairly conservative. Maybe she's this town's version of Belle du Jour.
Back to the Mermaid Mumbler. She stares down at the pastry case, which I know from experience is picked over by 1 p.m. - by 8:30 p.m. - all you've got is egg salad and the next morning's granola.
I guess she's hungry. Maybe she works nights. Poor thing. Now I feel bad for her, having to make do with the sad contents of a picked-over Starbucks cold case. Yeah. We all got crosses to bear.
So she gets one of those fruit and cheese trays, which are healthy but like six bucks. and requests two drinks. And a bag. If you hear my rants on a regular basis, you know that I'm against useless Starbucks baggery. I mean, IT JUST HAS TO GO BACK OUT TO YOUR CAR. Yet, the Mermaid Mumbler gets a bag for one fruit and cheese plate.
So distracted by the thought of her new - AND SHINY, LOOK THE PRETTY PATTERNS - Starbucks bag, the Mermaid Mumbler picks up a New York Times and starts to read.
The Mermaid Mumbler forgets that she hasn't yet paid.
The Mermaid Mumbler is reminded that she hasn't yet paid by Tall Tina. Tall Tina takes the credit card. The Mermaid Mumbler scrabbles around in her purse for some unknown reason, as she doesn't tip or pay any extra cash. Always tip your barista. Always.
The Mermaid Mumbler gets her credit card back, picks up her incredibly wasteful sack that contains a single fruit and cheese platter and decides to read the New York Times that is sitting in a stand right beside the register.
The Mermaid Mumbler forgets that her hips are wider than most. The Mermaid Mumbler is blocking access to the register for a skinny woman in purple scrubs. On a side note, I am so happy that they decided to let nurses wear funky scrubs. It just makes hospitals more fun.
Purple scrubs gives one of those throat-clearing "HRRUMPHS" that could sandblast the hull of an oil tanker. The Mermaid Mumbler leaps clear and decides to come hang out by me. I guess she just wanted me to get a good look at her pink and black ensemble.
The Mermaid Mumbler notices that there is a rack of "free" newspapers next to one of the comfy chairs. The Mermaid Mumbler goes "HUH" and helps herself to the exact same edition of the New York Times she WAS reading - except that this one goes into her Starbucks bag. Maybe she wanted a stock market quote? Or bird cage liner? I dunno.
Happy to have acquired a free New York Times, the Mermaid Mumbler heads out the door. She gets outside. Literally OUTSIDE - when I hear her burst back through the door going "MY DRINKS, MY DRINKS!"
Yes. Yes. Yes. The Mermaid Mumbler left without her drinks.
Which still weren't finished, as she'd ordered two frappuccinos. Which takes time.
The Mermaid Mumbler flies back to the drink handoff counter and camps there until her frappuccinos come out. Then she heads back out the door.
But not before stopping to examine the Starbucks Via display. Attention span of a gnat that woman. Attention span of a gnat.
Tonight, Mermaid Mumbler is wearing black stretch legging somethings and a bright pink top. This is an eye-searing pink - milk of magnesia pink - Shelby Eatonton Latcherie would call this color "blush," while most grown men would simply run.
Like I said, those hips are unmistakable. Plus, she lumbers. There's no other word for it - it is definitely a "lumber." And we're not talking wood here.
She comes in right behind a super-skinny executive type that's working late - or maybe just "working late" - I can't quite tell with the three-inch heels, although the dress is fairly conservative. Maybe she's this town's version of Belle du Jour.
Back to the Mermaid Mumbler. She stares down at the pastry case, which I know from experience is picked over by 1 p.m. - by 8:30 p.m. - all you've got is egg salad and the next morning's granola.
I guess she's hungry. Maybe she works nights. Poor thing. Now I feel bad for her, having to make do with the sad contents of a picked-over Starbucks cold case. Yeah. We all got crosses to bear.
So she gets one of those fruit and cheese trays, which are healthy but like six bucks. and requests two drinks. And a bag. If you hear my rants on a regular basis, you know that I'm against useless Starbucks baggery. I mean, IT JUST HAS TO GO BACK OUT TO YOUR CAR. Yet, the Mermaid Mumbler gets a bag for one fruit and cheese plate.
So distracted by the thought of her new - AND SHINY, LOOK THE PRETTY PATTERNS - Starbucks bag, the Mermaid Mumbler picks up a New York Times and starts to read.
The Mermaid Mumbler forgets that she hasn't yet paid.
The Mermaid Mumbler is reminded that she hasn't yet paid by Tall Tina. Tall Tina takes the credit card. The Mermaid Mumbler scrabbles around in her purse for some unknown reason, as she doesn't tip or pay any extra cash. Always tip your barista. Always.
The Mermaid Mumbler gets her credit card back, picks up her incredibly wasteful sack that contains a single fruit and cheese platter and decides to read the New York Times that is sitting in a stand right beside the register.
The Mermaid Mumbler forgets that her hips are wider than most. The Mermaid Mumbler is blocking access to the register for a skinny woman in purple scrubs. On a side note, I am so happy that they decided to let nurses wear funky scrubs. It just makes hospitals more fun.
Purple scrubs gives one of those throat-clearing "HRRUMPHS" that could sandblast the hull of an oil tanker. The Mermaid Mumbler leaps clear and decides to come hang out by me. I guess she just wanted me to get a good look at her pink and black ensemble.
The Mermaid Mumbler notices that there is a rack of "free" newspapers next to one of the comfy chairs. The Mermaid Mumbler goes "HUH" and helps herself to the exact same edition of the New York Times she WAS reading - except that this one goes into her Starbucks bag. Maybe she wanted a stock market quote? Or bird cage liner? I dunno.
Happy to have acquired a free New York Times, the Mermaid Mumbler heads out the door. She gets outside. Literally OUTSIDE - when I hear her burst back through the door going "MY DRINKS, MY DRINKS!"
Yes. Yes. Yes. The Mermaid Mumbler left without her drinks.
Which still weren't finished, as she'd ordered two frappuccinos. Which takes time.
The Mermaid Mumbler flies back to the drink handoff counter and camps there until her frappuccinos come out. Then she heads back out the door.
But not before stopping to examine the Starbucks Via display. Attention span of a gnat that woman. Attention span of a gnat.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
This Week, On Starbucks Drama: Oct. 5 - Oct. 8
- The week started out with a bang, with Mr. Harley and the recipe book from Hell's Angels. I stand by my call that this was either an AA get-together or the world's worst blind date. Somebody wasn't happy to be there, although I'm not quite sure who. Don't miss Mr. Harley's recipe for marina sauce, which involves two cans of Hunt's Tomato Paste - and a grated carrot. Apparently, the secret IS in the sauce!
There was the Comfy Chair War, which was a bloodless but bitter struggle, waged in silence for eons - or the span of time it took to suck down a iced venti mocha, which ever came first. I lost the battle, but not the war. Because people should know that purple IS the color of royalty.
- Possibly the best moment of the week involved a confused and possibly stupid white man peering over the register and screaming "IS ANYONE BACK THERE?" - because we all know that pensioners lose things with such frequency as they age - their hearing, their glasses, their eyesight - THEIR WITS!
- And finally, there was The Great Pastry Debate of 2009, wherein three old ladies matched wits with Super Cindy in a battle for truth, justice, the America way and frappuccino royale. I don't know about you, but I've never entertained any illusions that the pastries at Starbucks are actually "good" for you; they're only good in the sense that they're loaded with sugar and tons of lovely, unnecessary calories!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Is anyone back there? Up there? Or am I just as dumb as I look?
Old white men (and women, for whom I have a special name, WOACAs) are probably the bane of retail workers everywhere. Especially if they're wealthy, semi-wealthy or just downright parsimonious.
Ain't nothing worse than an old-age pensioner trying to stretch the hide right off a buffalo nickel. God forbid you charge her two cents more on a can of peas. That crone will STAND IN LINE for 20 minutes at the customer service counter on a Sunday for those two pennies, then demand that you walk over to the ice cream freezer and get her a new gallon of Blue Bunny ice cream because hers melted while she was standing in line for that dime. Been there, done that, blogged about it. Old people suck.
Where was I? Old white men.
Unless they're wealthy enough to buy half of Greece (Aristotle Onassis), or in line for a crown (Charles, the Prince of Wales), you should look elsewhere ladies. That is sage advice.
Tonight's barista pair is Quiet Quinn and Super Cindy. And I swear that Quiet Quinn flirted with me. He could have just been looking for a tip though. Or his feet might have hurt. Or he was bored. Who the hell knows.
I get a mocha and a donut, take a photo of the comfy chair and settle in to write. The baristas are cleaning and the place is dead, dead, dead. I'm starting to wonder if getting here at 8 p.m. is such a wise move, because all the drama seems to happen around 9ish or later - not that I have a life to live outside this. Where was I?
The place is slow, although the atmosphere is magnificent. There's some spectacular jazz mix playing on the CD and they must have just finished grinding coffee beans a few minutes ago. The cafe is just entirely filled with the smell of ground coffee - which I adore. It just fills the air and makes everything so wonderful. My whole terrible, horrible, too-stressful day melts away and I feel creative and intelligent.
I'm just getting the Internet started on my computer and the baristas have ducked into the back to get cleaning supplies or something. I dunno. Maybe Quiet Quinn and Super Cindy were making little mochachinos or something. It ain't none of my business. They weren't back there that long though.
So this old fat white dude comes in. Navy shorts and an ugly yellow and green print Tommy Bahama-esque top. (Why is it ALWAYS a Tommy Bahama top? Don't they have wives? girlfriends? boyfriends? hookers? maids? daughters? anything?) He just screams entitled, monied, rude, self-important snob from every angle of the room. I knew I had a post before he ever opened his mouth! And thusly, he did not disappoint!
He looks at the register. He looks at the pastry case. He gets up on his sockless loafered toes and peers over BEHIND the register, as if they're hiding from him, then he looks at me, like I'm going to hop up and serve him a coffee. As if.
Then he decides that the best way to get some service is to holler.
What pops out of his lips but "IS ANYBODY BACK THERE?"
Now, I once read somewhere that you should never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to.
And let's think about this. If there truly WAS no one back there, would you REALLY want to know what happened? Some tragic blender/grinder/sink accident? A Starbucks Via mutation that gained sentience and claimed the lives of every barista in town? Maybe the warming oven got tired of the stink of the egg sandwiches and walked away. Maybe the baristas REALLY ARE making little mochachinos.
My point is that Willard there knew very well that the baristas were occupied, that they were engaged in gainful occupation, and they were undoubtedly on their way back out. But he darn well wasn't going to wait another fourteen seconds for them to come back out. He was going to get that cup of drip coffee RIGHT BIGOD NOW!
Instead of walking across the street to the Mobil station and getting it for a quarter and serving himself and talking to the supremely friendly Haitian woman that works there. Instead he decided to heap abuse on Super Cindy and Quiet Quinn.
They hear him and stick their heads out from around the back and apologize. They're holding a mop and cleaning supplies. He doesn't care. "ABOUT TIME" he screams.
Super Cindy is trying to wash her hands while he's barking out an order - because I know that I want MY coffee to come smelling like floor polish or whatever.
I'd have served him a cup of drip coffee - with room for cream, sugar and Orange-Glo!
Ain't nothing worse than an old-age pensioner trying to stretch the hide right off a buffalo nickel. God forbid you charge her two cents more on a can of peas. That crone will STAND IN LINE for 20 minutes at the customer service counter on a Sunday for those two pennies, then demand that you walk over to the ice cream freezer and get her a new gallon of Blue Bunny ice cream because hers melted while she was standing in line for that dime. Been there, done that, blogged about it. Old people suck.
Where was I? Old white men.
Unless they're wealthy enough to buy half of Greece (Aristotle Onassis), or in line for a crown (Charles, the Prince of Wales), you should look elsewhere ladies. That is sage advice.
Tonight's barista pair is Quiet Quinn and Super Cindy. And I swear that Quiet Quinn flirted with me. He could have just been looking for a tip though. Or his feet might have hurt. Or he was bored. Who the hell knows.
I get a mocha and a donut, take a photo of the comfy chair and settle in to write. The baristas are cleaning and the place is dead, dead, dead. I'm starting to wonder if getting here at 8 p.m. is such a wise move, because all the drama seems to happen around 9ish or later - not that I have a life to live outside this. Where was I?
The place is slow, although the atmosphere is magnificent. There's some spectacular jazz mix playing on the CD and they must have just finished grinding coffee beans a few minutes ago. The cafe is just entirely filled with the smell of ground coffee - which I adore. It just fills the air and makes everything so wonderful. My whole terrible, horrible, too-stressful day melts away and I feel creative and intelligent.
I'm just getting the Internet started on my computer and the baristas have ducked into the back to get cleaning supplies or something. I dunno. Maybe Quiet Quinn and Super Cindy were making little mochachinos or something. It ain't none of my business. They weren't back there that long though.
So this old fat white dude comes in. Navy shorts and an ugly yellow and green print Tommy Bahama-esque top. (Why is it ALWAYS a Tommy Bahama top? Don't they have wives? girlfriends? boyfriends? hookers? maids? daughters? anything?) He just screams entitled, monied, rude, self-important snob from every angle of the room. I knew I had a post before he ever opened his mouth! And thusly, he did not disappoint!
He looks at the register. He looks at the pastry case. He gets up on his sockless loafered toes and peers over BEHIND the register, as if they're hiding from him, then he looks at me, like I'm going to hop up and serve him a coffee. As if.
Then he decides that the best way to get some service is to holler.
What pops out of his lips but "IS ANYBODY BACK THERE?"
Now, I once read somewhere that you should never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to.
And let's think about this. If there truly WAS no one back there, would you REALLY want to know what happened? Some tragic blender/grinder/sink accident? A Starbucks Via mutation that gained sentience and claimed the lives of every barista in town? Maybe the warming oven got tired of the stink of the egg sandwiches and walked away. Maybe the baristas REALLY ARE making little mochachinos.
My point is that Willard there knew very well that the baristas were occupied, that they were engaged in gainful occupation, and they were undoubtedly on their way back out. But he darn well wasn't going to wait another fourteen seconds for them to come back out. He was going to get that cup of drip coffee RIGHT BIGOD NOW!
Instead of walking across the street to the Mobil station and getting it for a quarter and serving himself and talking to the supremely friendly Haitian woman that works there. Instead he decided to heap abuse on Super Cindy and Quiet Quinn.
They hear him and stick their heads out from around the back and apologize. They're holding a mop and cleaning supplies. He doesn't care. "ABOUT TIME" he screams.
Super Cindy is trying to wash her hands while he's barking out an order - because I know that I want MY coffee to come smelling like floor polish or whatever.
I'd have served him a cup of drip coffee - with room for cream, sugar and Orange-Glo!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Starbucks Chair Wars: The Comfy Chair is MINE
The Chair Wars topic was too good to pass up. I've got a longer post for tomorrow, featuring the return of a beloved regular! Plus, this gives me a chance to get at least one day ahead. I've been working all day, writing all night and sleeping never. If I had a significant other, they'd have dumped me, shoved everything they owned into Hefty bags and stomped out the door. Remind me to tell you guys *that* particular story some time!
So. Anyway. I'm taking suggestions on the topic of "Is there a way to politely tell people that they are occupying MY comfy chair at the Starbucks? Other than staring?" VIEW TWEET
So far, we have:
@franka2009: "tell/show them how perfectly you fit in the chair, maybe they will comply, lol" VIEW TWEET
@oJolenet: "In a gossipy sort of way tell them you witnessed people having sex in that chair the other day.. They'll move! Lol"
@blueturtlefl just thinks it all "sounds like #sbuxdrama!" VIEW TWEET
Any others?
And here they come!
@TheDMailMan says that "pulling the fire alarm is always a no-fail method" - and that is so true. Just remember to wear gloves so the cops can't pin an arrest on you! VIEW TWEET
@blueturtlefl weighs in again, with the superb idea to create a nametag that reads #sbuxdrama King. Might have to read "Drama Queen," but we all get the picture! VIEW TWEET
Authentic, REAL-LIFE Starbucks barista @eekitschelsea says that "haha. At work when a regular comes in and their seat is occupied we all look to see what happens and where they decide to go." VIEW TWEET
And finally, according to @nwjerseyliz, "A 3 year old just came up to me in @Starbucks & told me I was sitting in his chair. In these discussions, size doesn't matter. I don't think I'd call the little boy a fan. He was claiming his territory. Coffeehouse drama." Darling, we applaud you for the sentiment and caring for your fellow man - no matter how small. How-ev-ER, *YOU* are the adult here. The howler monkey NEEDS TO LEARN that disappointment will come early, often and at the hands of the tall people. How else will they learn? VIEW TWEET 1 | VIEW TWEET 2
As for me? Personally, I like to go the Warner Brothers cartoon route and drop a piano on their heads.
Beep. Beep!
Do not be shy people. I know you have opinions. Everybody on the Internet has an opinion. Leave some answers in the comments. You can be anony-mice. I don't care.
So. Anyway. I'm taking suggestions on the topic of "Is there a way to politely tell people that they are occupying MY comfy chair at the Starbucks? Other than staring?" VIEW TWEET
So far, we have:@franka2009: "tell/show them how perfectly you fit in the chair, maybe they will comply, lol" VIEW TWEET
@oJolenet: "In a gossipy sort of way tell them you witnessed people having sex in that chair the other day.. They'll move! Lol"
@blueturtlefl just thinks it all "sounds like #sbuxdrama!" VIEW TWEET
Any others?
And here they come!
@TheDMailMan says that "pulling the fire alarm is always a no-fail method" - and that is so true. Just remember to wear gloves so the cops can't pin an arrest on you! VIEW TWEET
@blueturtlefl weighs in again, with the superb idea to create a nametag that reads #sbuxdrama King. Might have to read "Drama Queen," but we all get the picture! VIEW TWEET
Authentic, REAL-LIFE Starbucks barista @eekitschelsea says that "haha. At work when a regular comes in and their seat is occupied we all look to see what happens and where they decide to go." VIEW TWEET
And finally, according to @nwjerseyliz, "A 3 year old just came up to me in @Starbucks & told me I was sitting in his chair. In these discussions, size doesn't matter. I don't think I'd call the little boy a fan. He was claiming his territory. Coffeehouse drama." Darling, we applaud you for the sentiment and caring for your fellow man - no matter how small. How-ev-ER, *YOU* are the adult here. The howler monkey NEEDS TO LEARN that disappointment will come early, often and at the hands of the tall people. How else will they learn? VIEW TWEET 1 | VIEW TWEET 2
As for me? Personally, I like to go the Warner Brothers cartoon route and drop a piano on their heads.
Beep. Beep!
Do not be shy people. I know you have opinions. Everybody on the Internet has an opinion. Leave some answers in the comments. You can be anony-mice. I don't care.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Mr. Harley's Guide to Life, Love and Tomato Sauce
Substance abusers and ex-substance abusers just might just be the most insightful people on the planet. Seriously. And I just might be the stupidest.
I call myself a keen observer of human nature. I like to think that I'm smart and insightful and clever and all those brilliant adjectives. I'm so not. For instance, I badly misjudged a situation tonight.
I sallied into what I call the Ganja Starbucks, because I have strong suspicious that all sorts of things above the power of clove and tobacco get smoked out on the patio once the sun goes down. I've never asked, and I've never been told.
Where was I? I sailed in searching for a venti iced mocha, a donut and a place to charge my laptop. The baristas looked up from cleaning and pretending to sell Starbucks Via long enough to make me a drink and chat. I couldn't park in my normal spot that afforded a view of the registers and the barista antics because some old dude was there with a laptop, a portable printer - AND TWO BOXES OF PIZZA. He had sprawled out across a space meant for six. Dude. Seriously, I understand you need work space, but keep your food detritus to yourself.
I wander into the lobby and am immediately put off by a large biker-type wearing a Harley T-shirt and a bandana and some black shorts that are straining to cover his ham hock thighs. He is practically yelling at a professional-looking woman in a business suit and a pageboy bob who is gripping a cup of coffee for all its worth. I'm shocked she's not wearing most of a cup of Colombian all over her manicure by now.
You always wonder at these oddball pairings. Attorney/client? Shrink/headshrunk? Therapist/patient? AA sponsor/sponsoree? Blind date? Or something more sinister? Is it blackmail? White male? Something in between?
At first, I seriously thought this was some sort of "socialization" exercise. This used to happen every Thursday at the mall, where volunteers would bring girls from the local group home "out" to socialize in a "real world" environment. The extra-loud voice, the ill-fitting clothes on him, the ultra-dressy outfit on her, all spoke to some sort of social inequality - and like it or not, our society judges people based on how they look.
I decide this situation - whatever the hell it is - has better drama potential than the old guy with the pizza boxes, so I set up in the corner. It soon becomes obvious that appearances were deceiving.
Every time I think I unraveled it, it got a bit more crazy. And then more crazy still. Until finally it leapt off the deep end into a pool of whipped cream (yes, I'm going to keep going back to that) crazy with chocolate sprinkles and did the backstroke while performing a routine to Lady Gaga's "PokerFace" - in unison with seventeen trained manatees and a scarlet starfish. I was typing notes and finally just quit. There's no way to make this into a narrative. It can't even BEGIN to make sense.
Therefore, I present to you, the Starbucks Reading Public, the Collected Proverbs and Rhyme of Mr. Harley!
#1. Mr. Harley's Red Beans & Rice: Throw four handfuls of rice, some pepper and a pound of sausage into a pot. Boil for 2 hours.
#2. Mr. Harley's Marinara: 2 cans Hunts tomato paste, 4 tomatoes, 1 med. grated carrot, parsley, heat 15 min. stirring constantly! Apparently, the key to THIS dish is the acidity of the carrots. I personally despise carrots in my tomato sauce - and besides, opening up to cans of tomato paste is cheating. You might as well buy a jar of Ragu.
#3. "Fear is good."
#4. "Beer is good."
#5. "Be very afraid."
#6. "Key West is nice" and its corollary, "There are no clocks in Key West."
#7. Saxophones are musical sex. This one was accomplished by much hooting and guffawing of "YOU KNOW I"M RIGHT!"
#8. "Musicians don't leave room for people with real talent to play."
#9. "The Renaissance was better [than the Greeks] just because it had the Italians." There were also words describing anatomical actions I don't feel comfortable repeating.
10. God, I don't know. I ate a donut and sort of quit listening after a certain point. It didn't make any sense and my brain hurt trying to figure it out.
I *think* - and this is only a guess, that HE was HER *something* Anonymous adviser and this was one of those "crisis of confidence" meetings. The more I listened, and the more I looked, I realized that my initial impressions were probably wrong.
He wasn't dressed as poorly as I thought. Yes, he had on a Harley-Davidson T-shirt that strained to keep his gut in, but it was just worn, not dirty or ripped or torn. His pants were clean and his beard was trimmed. It looked like he simply dressed in a great hurry - which is what "sponsors" do when their "sponsorees" call, right?
For the quiet woman's part, she wasn't dressed as well as I though at first glance. Her business suit wasn't a business suit. It was a pair of worn slacks that could have come from a thrift store and the shirt was just as worn. That doesn't mean anything either - she could have just been secretarial class instead of management. Her nails were nice though, as was her hair. She hadn't gone too far down the slope, or else was on her way back up.
But her carriage and demeanor was the most obvious sign. She simply looked frail, and this was apparent once I got the chance to really study her. What I thought was her pain at an awkward situation and a lost evening was really pain for her own hurts. In retrospect it was clear - no doctor or therapist or volunteer would be so crass as to feel embarrassment *for* the person they are helping.
She spoke hardly a word the entire time she was here - Mr. Harley kept the conversation roaring like a hog pointed down the open road. She'd mumble a response in a soft voice.
They left together, although there was absolutely no touching, no hug, no handshake, no familiarity. He dropped his coffee cup in the can, she dropped hers, she "freshened up" while he waited and they exited the door.
I stand by my call that it was either an emergency AA sponsor meeting or the worst blind date in history.
I call myself a keen observer of human nature. I like to think that I'm smart and insightful and clever and all those brilliant adjectives. I'm so not. For instance, I badly misjudged a situation tonight.
I sallied into what I call the Ganja Starbucks, because I have strong suspicious that all sorts of things above the power of clove and tobacco get smoked out on the patio once the sun goes down. I've never asked, and I've never been told.
Where was I? I sailed in searching for a venti iced mocha, a donut and a place to charge my laptop. The baristas looked up from cleaning and pretending to sell Starbucks Via long enough to make me a drink and chat. I couldn't park in my normal spot that afforded a view of the registers and the barista antics because some old dude was there with a laptop, a portable printer - AND TWO BOXES OF PIZZA. He had sprawled out across a space meant for six. Dude. Seriously, I understand you need work space, but keep your food detritus to yourself.
I wander into the lobby and am immediately put off by a large biker-type wearing a Harley T-shirt and a bandana and some black shorts that are straining to cover his ham hock thighs. He is practically yelling at a professional-looking woman in a business suit and a pageboy bob who is gripping a cup of coffee for all its worth. I'm shocked she's not wearing most of a cup of Colombian all over her manicure by now.
You always wonder at these oddball pairings. Attorney/client? Shrink/headshrunk? Therapist/patient? AA sponsor/sponsoree? Blind date? Or something more sinister? Is it blackmail? White male? Something in between?
At first, I seriously thought this was some sort of "socialization" exercise. This used to happen every Thursday at the mall, where volunteers would bring girls from the local group home "out" to socialize in a "real world" environment. The extra-loud voice, the ill-fitting clothes on him, the ultra-dressy outfit on her, all spoke to some sort of social inequality - and like it or not, our society judges people based on how they look.
I decide this situation - whatever the hell it is - has better drama potential than the old guy with the pizza boxes, so I set up in the corner. It soon becomes obvious that appearances were deceiving.
Every time I think I unraveled it, it got a bit more crazy. And then more crazy still. Until finally it leapt off the deep end into a pool of whipped cream (yes, I'm going to keep going back to that) crazy with chocolate sprinkles and did the backstroke while performing a routine to Lady Gaga's "PokerFace" - in unison with seventeen trained manatees and a scarlet starfish. I was typing notes and finally just quit. There's no way to make this into a narrative. It can't even BEGIN to make sense.
Therefore, I present to you, the Starbucks Reading Public, the Collected Proverbs and Rhyme of Mr. Harley!
#1. Mr. Harley's Red Beans & Rice: Throw four handfuls of rice, some pepper and a pound of sausage into a pot. Boil for 2 hours.
#2. Mr. Harley's Marinara: 2 cans Hunts tomato paste, 4 tomatoes, 1 med. grated carrot, parsley, heat 15 min. stirring constantly! Apparently, the key to THIS dish is the acidity of the carrots. I personally despise carrots in my tomato sauce - and besides, opening up to cans of tomato paste is cheating. You might as well buy a jar of Ragu.
#3. "Fear is good."
#4. "Beer is good."
#5. "Be very afraid."
#6. "Key West is nice" and its corollary, "There are no clocks in Key West."
#7. Saxophones are musical sex. This one was accomplished by much hooting and guffawing of "YOU KNOW I"M RIGHT!"
#8. "Musicians don't leave room for people with real talent to play."
#9. "The Renaissance was better [than the Greeks] just because it had the Italians." There were also words describing anatomical actions I don't feel comfortable repeating.
10. God, I don't know. I ate a donut and sort of quit listening after a certain point. It didn't make any sense and my brain hurt trying to figure it out.
I *think* - and this is only a guess, that HE was HER *something* Anonymous adviser and this was one of those "crisis of confidence" meetings. The more I listened, and the more I looked, I realized that my initial impressions were probably wrong.
He wasn't dressed as poorly as I thought. Yes, he had on a Harley-Davidson T-shirt that strained to keep his gut in, but it was just worn, not dirty or ripped or torn. His pants were clean and his beard was trimmed. It looked like he simply dressed in a great hurry - which is what "sponsors" do when their "sponsorees" call, right?
For the quiet woman's part, she wasn't dressed as well as I though at first glance. Her business suit wasn't a business suit. It was a pair of worn slacks that could have come from a thrift store and the shirt was just as worn. That doesn't mean anything either - she could have just been secretarial class instead of management. Her nails were nice though, as was her hair. She hadn't gone too far down the slope, or else was on her way back up.
But her carriage and demeanor was the most obvious sign. She simply looked frail, and this was apparent once I got the chance to really study her. What I thought was her pain at an awkward situation and a lost evening was really pain for her own hurts. In retrospect it was clear - no doctor or therapist or volunteer would be so crass as to feel embarrassment *for* the person they are helping.
She spoke hardly a word the entire time she was here - Mr. Harley kept the conversation roaring like a hog pointed down the open road. She'd mumble a response in a soft voice.
They left together, although there was absolutely no touching, no hug, no handshake, no familiarity. He dropped his coffee cup in the can, she dropped hers, she "freshened up" while he waited and they exited the door.
I stand by my call that it was either an emergency AA sponsor meeting or the worst blind date in history.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Previously, on Starbucks Drama: Sept. 24 - Oct. 2
- New on the best-seller list and now on sale at the Starbucks registers! "Trouble Always Comes in Twos: The Adventures of Holly Highwater and Polly Pickamix" - or as I like to call them, the skinny girl and heifer that couldn't make up her mind.
- Problem customers seem unable to communicate in any language. Have you ever wondered if Starbucks sells moo juice?
- Old people are the bane of several planes of existence. Wheelchair Winnie and her Super-Scooter of Doom are probably the high priestess of planetary evil in at least nine dimensions and working on conquering another as we speak.
- The pastries at Starbucks are delicious. Unlike Fresh Fanny, I don't believe that they bake them there. Her muffin top would seem to indicate differently.
- Fans of Starbucks Drama were treated to real, live, in-person gathering.
- We served as a test audience for the wonder and joy that is Starbucks Via.
- The whole jaw-dropping tale that led to the creation of #sbuxdrama was related. Two crazy women and their cell phone and one "very special" meeting. Read it and be inspired.
- One day later, the #sbuxdrama gods smiled, for there, out of the blue, as if sprung like Eve from Adam's rib, there appeared more insanity. The Whipped Cream Adventure of 2009 landed on these shores one bright Wednesday and rode off into sunset sated on a cloud of sugar, cinnamon and strangeness and the answer to the eternal question: "Who eats a frappuccino with a spoon?"
- Finally, one lovely evening in a coffee shop was shattered by the sounds of two pensioners hopped up on sugar, caffeine and Viagra who decided to share sounds of their affection with the world. What is the sound of two tongues slurping?
Friday, October 2, 2009
What is the sound of 100 years sucking face?
I have a theory that if you stay in any public space long enough, some sort of crazy, messed-up stuff will happen. I aim to prove that. Because as a rule, people do not know how to behave themselves in public anymore. You KNOW THAT IS THE TRUTH.
I'm sitting in the exact spot where I witnessed this episode go down. Well, I'm in the spot where THEY were. So obviously, after the adventures of tonight, I truly believe that this is either a cursed/blessed (take your pick on your point of view) spot.
I'm tap-tapping away, thinking about the merits of writing about Mr. Big Shot "I Told The Geek Squad What To Do" with my computer. Dude. They took your money. Of course they listened to you. They listen to anyone dumb enough to bring their computer to Geek Squad. Not that they're not competent. But I'm just saying that I personally would not take a computer to Geek Squad.
And you "talking to them" does not make you an expert on hard drive repair. Nor does you testing three keyboards make you an expert on the "plastic manufacturing process" - yes his words - and how something-something - honestly, I didn't care at this point.
I was just going to bag Starbucks Drama tonight, because truthfully, I was tired, and ya'll DID get a ginormous semi-novella less than 24 hours ago.
And then the old people came in.
Seriously.
If you hang out in ANY public space ANYWHERE in the world for long enough, SOMEONE is going to do something worth talking about. People honestly just have ZERO concept of how to behave like intelligent, rational, decent human beings in public anymore. It is a lost art. I blame FOX News.
I'm writing something other than Starbucks Drama, because, you know, I have a real job that sometimes pays the bills.
I hear the door and then I hear an "Oh baby."
My head whips around so fast I'm shocked I didn't get whiplash. Seriously. I have a staring problem and I really don't care who know. It will probably get me killed one day. Until then, I plan to enjoy looking at people being stupid.
I'm thinking young people. I'm thinking wrong.
This is an old girl. We're talking about 60. She's got her a man her age and she's cocked her leg up over his hip, pressed his back up against the door, wrapped her arms around his head and is leaning in for the kill.
She goes in for the kill.
I look away.
I HEAR HER START TO SLURP.
Let me repeat that. I am sitting a good six feet away and I hear the physical sounds of making out from people who are old enough to be my parents, if not literally my grandparents.
I have a strong stomach, and I thought I was going to gag. I still *CANNOT* get that sound out of my head. It was a combination slurp, gargle and suck all in one.
The clench seemed to last forever. I am trying to write and I can hear them scrabbling around moaning and whatever. Like cats on a roof. I have no problem with old people. I have no problem with sex. I just don't think a Starbucks lobby is the appropriate place to be getting your Viagra-assisted mack on.
They wander over to get coffee and proceed to grope some more in front of the pastry case. They want coffee and pastry to fuel their lovemaking. I made that up - the fuel the lovemaking - although I have ZERO doubt that's what they were going to do.
They get two venti drip coffees and unspecified pastries and move over to the condiment bar for another round of PDA Olympics 2009.
I finally get a good look at their outfits. Grandpa is typical New Jersey Guido Gramps - tan, tan, tan, with thick arm hair that's bleached out to white and a freaking gold BRACELET on his meaty wrist. His shirt is some garish yellow and green Tommy Bahama print.
Randy Granny has tight white denim pants on, with cutesy little lace-up ties on the sides. And a yellow crop-top long-sleeve shirt with a blue denim jacket over that. And wrinkles. Like elephant wrinkles. She is very tan too, which is probably where the wrinkles come from. Save your skin ladies, because YOU WILL get the wrinkles once you hit the upper decades.
So they're at the condiment bar, which is like ten feet from me, and Guido Gramps comes up behind Randy Granny and starts grinding his pelvis into her as she's doing the cream and sugar thing.
She loves it. I watch this performance. I cannot actually believe I'm seeing this, much less from these two old lovebirds.
Finally, they get tired of grinding and get down to the serious business of fixing their coffee - at which point I get something of a miniature repeat of last night's performance involving the crazy people.
Finally, they get the coffees the way they like and load the stuff up to head out the door.
They go right past me and he slips his hands back around her waist. And she starts to slip her hand I do NOT want to know where.
I can't do any more of this. Drama I can handle. Porn I cannot.
Baristas: Schlumpy Bear and Boxer Billy
I'm sitting in the exact spot where I witnessed this episode go down. Well, I'm in the spot where THEY were. So obviously, after the adventures of tonight, I truly believe that this is either a cursed/blessed (take your pick on your point of view) spot.
I'm tap-tapping away, thinking about the merits of writing about Mr. Big Shot "I Told The Geek Squad What To Do" with my computer. Dude. They took your money. Of course they listened to you. They listen to anyone dumb enough to bring their computer to Geek Squad. Not that they're not competent. But I'm just saying that I personally would not take a computer to Geek Squad.
And you "talking to them" does not make you an expert on hard drive repair. Nor does you testing three keyboards make you an expert on the "plastic manufacturing process" - yes his words - and how something-something - honestly, I didn't care at this point.
I was just going to bag Starbucks Drama tonight, because truthfully, I was tired, and ya'll DID get a ginormous semi-novella less than 24 hours ago.
And then the old people came in.
Seriously.
If you hang out in ANY public space ANYWHERE in the world for long enough, SOMEONE is going to do something worth talking about. People honestly just have ZERO concept of how to behave like intelligent, rational, decent human beings in public anymore. It is a lost art. I blame FOX News.
I'm writing something other than Starbucks Drama, because, you know, I have a real job that sometimes pays the bills.
I hear the door and then I hear an "Oh baby."
My head whips around so fast I'm shocked I didn't get whiplash. Seriously. I have a staring problem and I really don't care who know. It will probably get me killed one day. Until then, I plan to enjoy looking at people being stupid.
I'm thinking young people. I'm thinking wrong.
This is an old girl. We're talking about 60. She's got her a man her age and she's cocked her leg up over his hip, pressed his back up against the door, wrapped her arms around his head and is leaning in for the kill.
She goes in for the kill.
I look away.
I HEAR HER START TO SLURP.
Let me repeat that. I am sitting a good six feet away and I hear the physical sounds of making out from people who are old enough to be my parents, if not literally my grandparents.
I have a strong stomach, and I thought I was going to gag. I still *CANNOT* get that sound out of my head. It was a combination slurp, gargle and suck all in one.
The clench seemed to last forever. I am trying to write and I can hear them scrabbling around moaning and whatever. Like cats on a roof. I have no problem with old people. I have no problem with sex. I just don't think a Starbucks lobby is the appropriate place to be getting your Viagra-assisted mack on.
They wander over to get coffee and proceed to grope some more in front of the pastry case. They want coffee and pastry to fuel their lovemaking. I made that up - the fuel the lovemaking - although I have ZERO doubt that's what they were going to do.
They get two venti drip coffees and unspecified pastries and move over to the condiment bar for another round of PDA Olympics 2009.
I finally get a good look at their outfits. Grandpa is typical New Jersey Guido Gramps - tan, tan, tan, with thick arm hair that's bleached out to white and a freaking gold BRACELET on his meaty wrist. His shirt is some garish yellow and green Tommy Bahama print.
Randy Granny has tight white denim pants on, with cutesy little lace-up ties on the sides. And a yellow crop-top long-sleeve shirt with a blue denim jacket over that. And wrinkles. Like elephant wrinkles. She is very tan too, which is probably where the wrinkles come from. Save your skin ladies, because YOU WILL get the wrinkles once you hit the upper decades.
So they're at the condiment bar, which is like ten feet from me, and Guido Gramps comes up behind Randy Granny and starts grinding his pelvis into her as she's doing the cream and sugar thing.
She loves it. I watch this performance. I cannot actually believe I'm seeing this, much less from these two old lovebirds.
Finally, they get tired of grinding and get down to the serious business of fixing their coffee - at which point I get something of a miniature repeat of last night's performance involving the crazy people.
- Six packets of raw sugar.
- UNSCREW the chocolate shaker and dump some into the drink.
- UNSCREW the vanilla shaker and dump some MORE sugar into the drink.
- A good helping of cream.
- and finally some milk.
- Stir briskly.
- More chocolate flakes. Because the two-thirds of America that does not have diabetes needs to get it all the more rapidly.
Finally, they get the coffees the way they like and load the stuff up to head out the door.
They go right past me and he slips his hands back around her waist. And she starts to slip her hand I do NOT want to know where.
I can't do any more of this. Drama I can handle. Porn I cannot.
Baristas: Schlumpy Bear and Boxer Billy
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Who eats a frappuccino with a spoon?
On the heels of the re-post of the adventure that inspired the first Starbucks Drama post, I was gifted with another "very special" crew that came in to the Starbucks very late tonight. About 45 minutes before closing is when all this went down. As luck would have it, they managed to catch the newbie barista on like his second day. And the drama unfolded like newly folded sheets snapping open over a naked mattress, enveloping everything it touched. DRAMA! But not just any drama - STARBUCKS DRAMA! - and of the highest order.
I love the smell of newbie barista in the morning. Not really though, because it invariably causes problems when you're trying to get a drink and they're trying to learn. But we were all new at something in our lives. Shiva only knows what the heck my customers thought of me when I was trying to learn how to run a cash register - I specifically remember one old man SCREAMING at me "YOUR FAST LANES ARE NOT FAST! YOU NEED TO SPEED IT UP!"
Anywho. Let's talk about - gosh, he needs a nickname - Tall Tony, no, how about Quiet Quinn, because he has that sort of scholarly personality about him. Dunno why he's working at a Starbucks, because most baristas I've run across are over-caffeinated, hyperactive electrified livewires. I'm going to start re-using them - if I remember. There WILL be a test later.
Quiet Quinn - who's very cute, in that nebbish sort of way - was attempting to hold down Fort Frappuccino all by himself while Super Cindy snuck out for a cigarette and probably a potty break. He'd been calling her all night. "How do I? How do I? How do I?"
This wasn't an annoyance thing - he was obviously new - and she'd introduced him as such earlier in the night when Super Cindy herself made me my very own sample of Starbucks Via (the verdict? Thumbs Down; I don't like plain coffee anyway, why would I like instant?).
Anyway. I was staring at a blank screen - yet again - tapping idly and wondering if I could find inspiration in the smell of roasting coffee beans - when I hear something that sounds like this question - "I can use that thing to make drinks, right?" I look up and he's pointing at either the blender or a mop.
Admittedly, it is hard to tell the difference that results when we're talking about the smoothies (I do not like Vivannos), but in general, I'd wager that you use the blender-thing, and not the mop-thing to make drinks at a coffee bar. Unless we're talking about the mop-bucket and that's what you use to brew the Starbucks Via. Anyway. File him under cute but not too bright.
You can tell Quiet Quinn is praying that no one comes in during the next ten minutes. All he wants to do is wash some dishes and mop the floor.
No such luck. Unless you're a Starbucks Drama reader. Then baby, you hit the jackpot, lucky seven, row of cherries with a bar at the Palms. Gold coins wrapped with chocolate covered espresso beans are pouring out and green-apron clad barista dancing girls are bring you lattes garnished with whip cream and cherries. Pastries are floating from the ceiling on clouds of clotted cream. This IS your lucky night.
I hear the door swish and feet come clip-clip, clop-clop inside. It is obviously a crowd. Three of them. A fairly well-put-together woman, who's dressed in a clean, but worn tan skirt, some sort of seashell print top and a cardigan on over that. She's young, maybe in her thirties, although you can never tell. Her face doesn't have that "been through the wringer 87 times" look yet. She's got a really interesting woven leather purse with her.
She's accompanied by two dudes who are either on the way down or just starting back up. One is wearing a dirty pair of blue jeans, what looks like a T-shirt out of a pack of undershirts from a Target or Wal-mart and a heavy green and black plaid overshirt over that. The overshirt is unbuttoned, but he's obviously cold all the time. Unshaven and he looks visibly to be barely in control. Nervous, jerky and entirely antsy. I'd say 50, but he could be anything from 30 to 60.
The other man, what I'd call "skinny white boy" is probably 25-ish. He's wearing clean blue jeans, a white T-shirt and again, a heavy blue plaid overshirt. I wonder if they were sleeping outside? Or used to it?
They order Frappuccinos. Well, one orders a Vivanno. Which is the cause of the consternation, because Quiet Quinn apparently hasn't graduated to actually making drinks yet - except for pulling the handle on the drip coffee.
He rings up the orders, then has to go run OUT THE DOOR and grab Super Cindy to come in and make the drinks. I don't actually see her sigh, but the set of the shoulders says it all.
"Our Gang" specifically request no plastic tops on the glasses. And extra whipped cream. Which is nothing too unusual so far. Although the girl has gotten two packages of those Starbucks madeleine cookies and is gracefully, delicately unwrapping them one cookie at a time, carefully cracking them in half and eating them in slow, careful, ladylike bites. Almost as if she were some long-lost Spanish princess or something.
Back to the frozen drinks. Super Cindy finishes those up and whips them across the bar. There's not enough "extra" whipped cream for any of them - they want yet more - so she really lathers it on - and throws on some chocolate sauce for good measure. They're in sugar shock heaven. Or at least they think so.
Then, we get to the home staging portion of the evening.
The furniture in the Starbucks lobby - said lobby which has been occupied SINGULARLY since 9 p.m. by me, myself and my various personalities, otherplanar beings and assorted invisible deities named Bunisha, Loretta and Vohnquisha. Oh yeah, and two bored baristas who've already swept, mopped and set the lobby for the next day.
"Our Gang" decides that they don't "like" the purple recliners in the spots that they're in. They're too close to the windows, too far from the pastry case (the skinny white boy has a sweet tooth apparently and just wants to "look" at the pastry) and not close enough to each other.
This necessitates a complete furniture move of nearly everything in a good eight-foot radius as they start shoving four recliners, the two coffee tables that go with them, magazine racks and everything else together until they've created what can ONLY be described as a NEST in the middle of the store. All the other tables and chairs are ringing the recliners in a defensive formation - and the recliners are drawn RIGHTUPCLOSE to each other. Apparently, togetherness is a virtue. I know. You want photos. Do you seriously think I'm going to pull my phone out and start taking photos of crazy people? I might be eating that BlackBerry - and it didn't grow on a vine. I don't even like blackberries.
The two coffee tables are awarded pride of place in the middle of this collection of furniture. They are swiftly anointed with what seems like half the condiment bar, brought over one piece at a time, under the direction of the princess, with the two gentlemen in waiting doing the fetch-and-carry honors.
The woman proceeds to curl into the seat, place her purse on the table - where she found room I don't know - and do the sensual straw, tongue, mouth thing with the whipped cream. Past master of the art of seduction, that one. I bet that came in handy in a few places.
She gets the skinny white boy so excited that he slups off half his Vivanno or Frappuccino or whatever and he starts prowling the lobby, looking for something, anything to eat or do or touch to get his mind of her and that straw and that whipped cream.
Because she's not paying him ANY attention. She's all wrapped up about two feet from Unshaven Andy over there, watching him do something with his bag of cords. I tried not to stare too closely, because as oblivious as they were, you never knew if something mental was going to snap. And they ALL looked like they were going to snap at any moment. The baristas kept making themselves scarce in the back room, peeking out every few minutes or so. I was thinking, "Great. Leave ME out here alone with them."
After about ten minutes, they are all halfway through their drinks - and suddenly, it is apparently whipped cream refill time.
The skinny white boy goes and taps on the pastry case. Super Cindy is behind there doing something with trays and I can hear her let out an audible *OH* as he raps his knuckles on the glass.
Their drinks are all half-empty, but they want her to fill the glasses BACK up with whipped cream - the heavy, super-caloric Starbucks whipped cream. And add more chocolate syrup.
Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor (seriously, where are the cops wanting to cadge a free coffee when you need them?) in this case, Super Cindy pumps the cups full of whipped cream, layers on the chocolate and slings it back at them.
And I get a sight I must have missed the first time - either because I was typing or didn't notice.
They "doctor" the drinks. This was why they have the full condiment bar over at the table. First the cinnamon, then the chocolate powder. Then sugar or Splenda ON TOP OF THE WHIPPED CREAM. My teeth hurt just thinking about it. And more cinnamon and chocolate powder. Witch doctors working a spell to yank the evil spirits out of Glub the Cave Man and into a possum or something would not have had the concentration these three had. Shake. Shimmy. Stir. It was AMAZING.
Finally, when they have the "recipe" just right, they dig in with the spoons again. There's a real hunger for sugar there. They're muttering something about a "house" - which I think is a halfway house, but I can't really make it out over the music. The baristas has cranked it up around 8:30 p.m. when the place really cleared out and they started cleaning. Now, I wish it wasn't so loud.
They're muttering and slurping whipped cream and the woman whips out a package of Starbucks biscotti I didn't even know she had - I seriously hope she paid for it - and starts dipping that into the had to be six inches of whipped cream in her cup.
And then puts the whole thing in her mouth to lick it off.
I can't even pretend not to stare any more. It is just surreal. I look over at the baristas, and they've pretty much stopped cleaning and are standing there at the register just pretending to wipe down the counters and stare at what's going down in the lobby.
The Spanish princess is essentially "performing" on a baked good, Unshaven Andy has six or eight phone chargers spread out across a coffee table and the skinny white boy is busy dumping half a bottle of chocolate powder and six packets of Splenda onto what's already a venti cup half-full of whipped cream.
I'm smashing away at keys as fast as I can, trying to get the details down before I forget anything super-good and not be TOTALLY obvious that I'm just staring up and down at this little tete-a-tete for all its worth.
I'm banging keys and suddenly, they're on the move. The skinny white boy is toting items back to the condiment bar one at a time while Unshaven Andy is wrapping up cords - and JUMPING JEHOSAPHAT - he had some plugged in at outlets along the wall. With nothing attached to them as far as I can tell.
The crazy, it is starting to buuuuuuuurn.
The princess sashays up to the barista and asks for more lids. Flat lids. I swear by all the powers of the Light that I thought she just might ask for more whipped cream to go. And I would hav paid for it just watch them eat it.
The lids go on the cups. The condiment bar is re-stocked. Every scrap of trash finds its way to a trash can. Most of the tables and chairs are put back to something close to their original positions. Even all the cords find their way back to Unshaven Andy's pouch. Which disappears up under his flannel.
Princess even sweeps the crumbs off her chair onto the floor. How kind.
I'm watching all this and thinking, "Please don't go. I'm sure there's something more you can do, like bite the head off a live bat or turn cartwheels or something. It can get even better!"
Princess and Unshaven Andy exit immediately. The skinny white boy stands by the condiment bar and decides to go for a few more shakes of chocolate powder. And then he stands there and slurps off the remaining half of his whipped cream concoction in like four pulls of the straw, neatly deposits the now very empty glass in the trash, takes a napkin, wipes his hands and mouth, throws the napkin away and goes outside.
They all get on bikes and ride away into the gloom. No one was hit by a car crossing the road, no tires squealed, no brakes were slammed.
After they left, the baristas came out of hiding and started putting the furniture to rights. And Super Cindy asked me what I thought they were on. Signs point to various things - given the extreme need for sugar and the fascination with cords and wire. I won't hazard a guess.
Of course, they could have just been a perfectly normal bunch of strangers with a sugar and caffeine urge dressed in thrift store clothes. Kali only knows what people think of me - sitting in a coffee shop, night after night, staring at a computer and then staring at THEM.
I love the smell of newbie barista in the morning. Not really though, because it invariably causes problems when you're trying to get a drink and they're trying to learn. But we were all new at something in our lives. Shiva only knows what the heck my customers thought of me when I was trying to learn how to run a cash register - I specifically remember one old man SCREAMING at me "YOUR FAST LANES ARE NOT FAST! YOU NEED TO SPEED IT UP!"
Anywho. Let's talk about - gosh, he needs a nickname - Tall Tony, no, how about Quiet Quinn, because he has that sort of scholarly personality about him. Dunno why he's working at a Starbucks, because most baristas I've run across are over-caffeinated, hyperactive electrified livewires. I'm going to start re-using them - if I remember. There WILL be a test later.
Quiet Quinn - who's very cute, in that nebbish sort of way - was attempting to hold down Fort Frappuccino all by himself while Super Cindy snuck out for a cigarette and probably a potty break. He'd been calling her all night. "How do I? How do I? How do I?"
This wasn't an annoyance thing - he was obviously new - and she'd introduced him as such earlier in the night when Super Cindy herself made me my very own sample of Starbucks Via (the verdict? Thumbs Down; I don't like plain coffee anyway, why would I like instant?).
Anyway. I was staring at a blank screen - yet again - tapping idly and wondering if I could find inspiration in the smell of roasting coffee beans - when I hear something that sounds like this question - "I can use that thing to make drinks, right?" I look up and he's pointing at either the blender or a mop.
Admittedly, it is hard to tell the difference that results when we're talking about the smoothies (I do not like Vivannos), but in general, I'd wager that you use the blender-thing, and not the mop-thing to make drinks at a coffee bar. Unless we're talking about the mop-bucket and that's what you use to brew the Starbucks Via. Anyway. File him under cute but not too bright.
You can tell Quiet Quinn is praying that no one comes in during the next ten minutes. All he wants to do is wash some dishes and mop the floor.
No such luck. Unless you're a Starbucks Drama reader. Then baby, you hit the jackpot, lucky seven, row of cherries with a bar at the Palms. Gold coins wrapped with chocolate covered espresso beans are pouring out and green-apron clad barista dancing girls are bring you lattes garnished with whip cream and cherries. Pastries are floating from the ceiling on clouds of clotted cream. This IS your lucky night.
I hear the door swish and feet come clip-clip, clop-clop inside. It is obviously a crowd. Three of them. A fairly well-put-together woman, who's dressed in a clean, but worn tan skirt, some sort of seashell print top and a cardigan on over that. She's young, maybe in her thirties, although you can never tell. Her face doesn't have that "been through the wringer 87 times" look yet. She's got a really interesting woven leather purse with her.
She's accompanied by two dudes who are either on the way down or just starting back up. One is wearing a dirty pair of blue jeans, what looks like a T-shirt out of a pack of undershirts from a Target or Wal-mart and a heavy green and black plaid overshirt over that. The overshirt is unbuttoned, but he's obviously cold all the time. Unshaven and he looks visibly to be barely in control. Nervous, jerky and entirely antsy. I'd say 50, but he could be anything from 30 to 60.
The other man, what I'd call "skinny white boy" is probably 25-ish. He's wearing clean blue jeans, a white T-shirt and again, a heavy blue plaid overshirt. I wonder if they were sleeping outside? Or used to it?
They order Frappuccinos. Well, one orders a Vivanno. Which is the cause of the consternation, because Quiet Quinn apparently hasn't graduated to actually making drinks yet - except for pulling the handle on the drip coffee.
He rings up the orders, then has to go run OUT THE DOOR and grab Super Cindy to come in and make the drinks. I don't actually see her sigh, but the set of the shoulders says it all.
"Our Gang" specifically request no plastic tops on the glasses. And extra whipped cream. Which is nothing too unusual so far. Although the girl has gotten two packages of those Starbucks madeleine cookies and is gracefully, delicately unwrapping them one cookie at a time, carefully cracking them in half and eating them in slow, careful, ladylike bites. Almost as if she were some long-lost Spanish princess or something.
Back to the frozen drinks. Super Cindy finishes those up and whips them across the bar. There's not enough "extra" whipped cream for any of them - they want yet more - so she really lathers it on - and throws on some chocolate sauce for good measure. They're in sugar shock heaven. Or at least they think so.
Then, we get to the home staging portion of the evening.
The furniture in the Starbucks lobby - said lobby which has been occupied SINGULARLY since 9 p.m. by me, myself and my various personalities, otherplanar beings and assorted invisible deities named Bunisha, Loretta and Vohnquisha. Oh yeah, and two bored baristas who've already swept, mopped and set the lobby for the next day.
"Our Gang" decides that they don't "like" the purple recliners in the spots that they're in. They're too close to the windows, too far from the pastry case (the skinny white boy has a sweet tooth apparently and just wants to "look" at the pastry) and not close enough to each other.
This necessitates a complete furniture move of nearly everything in a good eight-foot radius as they start shoving four recliners, the two coffee tables that go with them, magazine racks and everything else together until they've created what can ONLY be described as a NEST in the middle of the store. All the other tables and chairs are ringing the recliners in a defensive formation - and the recliners are drawn RIGHTUPCLOSE to each other. Apparently, togetherness is a virtue. I know. You want photos. Do you seriously think I'm going to pull my phone out and start taking photos of crazy people? I might be eating that BlackBerry - and it didn't grow on a vine. I don't even like blackberries.
The two coffee tables are awarded pride of place in the middle of this collection of furniture. They are swiftly anointed with what seems like half the condiment bar, brought over one piece at a time, under the direction of the princess, with the two gentlemen in waiting doing the fetch-and-carry honors.
- One napkin dispenser
- One cinnamon shaker
- One chocolate powder shaker
- One water pitcher
- Three cups of water (I don't know why!)
- Sugar packets
- Splenda packets
- Every other kind of sweetener
- Coffee stirrers
- Straws and an extra loose straw apiece
- Enough loose napkins to paper the walls of the Louvre
- Don't forget all three drinks, with the tops - which they didn't want ON the drink but had to have anyway
- And for good measure, Unshaven Andy heaves up a gallon-size Ziploc bag full of phone chargers and cables and cords. My eyes bugged out at this one and I really had to make an effort not to make noise.
The woman proceeds to curl into the seat, place her purse on the table - where she found room I don't know - and do the sensual straw, tongue, mouth thing with the whipped cream. Past master of the art of seduction, that one. I bet that came in handy in a few places.
She gets the skinny white boy so excited that he slups off half his Vivanno or Frappuccino or whatever and he starts prowling the lobby, looking for something, anything to eat or do or touch to get his mind of her and that straw and that whipped cream.
Because she's not paying him ANY attention. She's all wrapped up about two feet from Unshaven Andy over there, watching him do something with his bag of cords. I tried not to stare too closely, because as oblivious as they were, you never knew if something mental was going to snap. And they ALL looked like they were going to snap at any moment. The baristas kept making themselves scarce in the back room, peeking out every few minutes or so. I was thinking, "Great. Leave ME out here alone with them."
After about ten minutes, they are all halfway through their drinks - and suddenly, it is apparently whipped cream refill time.
The skinny white boy goes and taps on the pastry case. Super Cindy is behind there doing something with trays and I can hear her let out an audible *OH* as he raps his knuckles on the glass.
Their drinks are all half-empty, but they want her to fill the glasses BACK up with whipped cream - the heavy, super-caloric Starbucks whipped cream. And add more chocolate syrup.
Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor (seriously, where are the cops wanting to cadge a free coffee when you need them?) in this case, Super Cindy pumps the cups full of whipped cream, layers on the chocolate and slings it back at them.
And I get a sight I must have missed the first time - either because I was typing or didn't notice.
They "doctor" the drinks. This was why they have the full condiment bar over at the table. First the cinnamon, then the chocolate powder. Then sugar or Splenda ON TOP OF THE WHIPPED CREAM. My teeth hurt just thinking about it. And more cinnamon and chocolate powder. Witch doctors working a spell to yank the evil spirits out of Glub the Cave Man and into a possum or something would not have had the concentration these three had. Shake. Shimmy. Stir. It was AMAZING.
Finally, when they have the "recipe" just right, they dig in with the spoons again. There's a real hunger for sugar there. They're muttering something about a "house" - which I think is a halfway house, but I can't really make it out over the music. The baristas has cranked it up around 8:30 p.m. when the place really cleared out and they started cleaning. Now, I wish it wasn't so loud.
They're muttering and slurping whipped cream and the woman whips out a package of Starbucks biscotti I didn't even know she had - I seriously hope she paid for it - and starts dipping that into the had to be six inches of whipped cream in her cup.
And then puts the whole thing in her mouth to lick it off.
I can't even pretend not to stare any more. It is just surreal. I look over at the baristas, and they've pretty much stopped cleaning and are standing there at the register just pretending to wipe down the counters and stare at what's going down in the lobby.
The Spanish princess is essentially "performing" on a baked good, Unshaven Andy has six or eight phone chargers spread out across a coffee table and the skinny white boy is busy dumping half a bottle of chocolate powder and six packets of Splenda onto what's already a venti cup half-full of whipped cream.
I'm smashing away at keys as fast as I can, trying to get the details down before I forget anything super-good and not be TOTALLY obvious that I'm just staring up and down at this little tete-a-tete for all its worth.
I'm banging keys and suddenly, they're on the move. The skinny white boy is toting items back to the condiment bar one at a time while Unshaven Andy is wrapping up cords - and JUMPING JEHOSAPHAT - he had some plugged in at outlets along the wall. With nothing attached to them as far as I can tell.
The crazy, it is starting to buuuuuuuurn.
The princess sashays up to the barista and asks for more lids. Flat lids. I swear by all the powers of the Light that I thought she just might ask for more whipped cream to go. And I would hav paid for it just watch them eat it.
The lids go on the cups. The condiment bar is re-stocked. Every scrap of trash finds its way to a trash can. Most of the tables and chairs are put back to something close to their original positions. Even all the cords find their way back to Unshaven Andy's pouch. Which disappears up under his flannel.
Princess even sweeps the crumbs off her chair onto the floor. How kind.
I'm watching all this and thinking, "Please don't go. I'm sure there's something more you can do, like bite the head off a live bat or turn cartwheels or something. It can get even better!"
Princess and Unshaven Andy exit immediately. The skinny white boy stands by the condiment bar and decides to go for a few more shakes of chocolate powder. And then he stands there and slurps off the remaining half of his whipped cream concoction in like four pulls of the straw, neatly deposits the now very empty glass in the trash, takes a napkin, wipes his hands and mouth, throws the napkin away and goes outside.
They all get on bikes and ride away into the gloom. No one was hit by a car crossing the road, no tires squealed, no brakes were slammed.
After they left, the baristas came out of hiding and started putting the furniture to rights. And Super Cindy asked me what I thought they were on. Signs point to various things - given the extreme need for sugar and the fascination with cords and wire. I won't hazard a guess.
Of course, they could have just been a perfectly normal bunch of strangers with a sugar and caffeine urge dressed in thrift store clothes. Kali only knows what people think of me - sitting in a coffee shop, night after night, staring at a computer and then staring at THEM.
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