Russian girls have all the fun, or Miss Chicken Kiev

There are truly some cracked out people wandering around the planet in the guise of functioning individuals. Every now and again, they wander into a Starbucks.

Let's call Number 1 Miss Yekaterinburg. Because she will never be Miss Moscow. Or even Miss Kiev. Maybe Miss Chicken Kiev. Oh, that was good. Sometimes I even impress myself. Her name is probably Svetlana. I like Svetlana. And her sister Ylena.

Svetlana and Ylena. The two Russian (I guess it was Russian. Whatever they were speaking was guttural, not German-ish and they sure as hell didn't look Swedish) chicks wandered in off the street. Quite possibly, LITERALLY off the street. You never know these days.

I'm not doing much, just browsing the net and catching up on my favorite Web comic - Questionable Content - when I see Svetlana fluffing her coat.

This coat is a thing of wonder. White puff leather (probably pleather) with a hood - a hood LINED IN FUR - and sleeveless. Let's recap that one. A white, sleeveless leather coat with a fur-lined hood. Can we possibly get much more impractical? How about a coat made out of Twizzlers? Or candy corn? Let's note that we are starting to approach Lady GaGa territory here.


Under this - and I don't see this until she turns around - she's wearing a god-awful contraption that looks like a boob sling. Except that each half of the sling is a different color. The left boob has a black boob sling and the right boob has a white boob sling. There's a strip of fabric around the back of her neck and another at the small of her back. That's pretty much it.

They don't meet AT ALL until somewhere about two inches above her navel. To quote the Fug Girls, "Skin is not a shirt!" I don't know whether this is fashion or just random pieces of fabric strung together in an approximation of clothing. That is the entirety of her top.

The bottom isn't much better - just a pair of black tights worn without anything over them, like, say, maybe a skirt or shorts or anything. No. Just tights. Great. A Lindsay Lohan impersonator, as the Fug Girls would say.

Here's the kicker. She's wearing bright, bright, BRIGHT, as in eye-searing, aquamarine, Easter egg-dye blue socks. These I notice as she kicks off her shoes and rests her feet on the pestilence-ridden floor of the Starbucks, which people have trod on all day, with THEIR pestilence-ridden feet. Have these fools never heard of swine flu? MRSA? Viral nasopharyngitis, acute viral rhinopharyngitis or plain old GOOD HYGIENE?

Ylena was nearly as bad. SHE was wearing a Juicy Couture velour special. Have you ever been in a Juicy Couture outlet? It is acres and acres of velour! This one was a travesty to behold. The bottom was crimson, with JUICY written across the buttocks in those faux Swarovski crystals that they use. It wasn't even a really juicy pair of buttocks. I mean, if Ylena's rear end was a turkey, it would have had to have been basted every 10 minutes. Girlfriend had no meat on those bones. She was not working the Russian peasant look at all.


Her top regions were clad in the other half of some other Juicy Couture velour track suit - in aquamarine. Was this some trend? I don't know if she was trying for something, or one half was dirty, of if this was just the style. Crimson and Aquamarine. It is the hot new band from the Continent. They're replacing Tatu! You heard it here first!

The Russian sisters (who knows?) stood and hemmed and hawwed at the pastry case. Obviously, nothing in there was good enough for the descendants of the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Then they moved on to the cold case. I swear I actually heard a *sniff* at one point. This from two girls wearing velour pants and tights as pants. Really chicas, really.

They point. They stare. They jabber. The barista, Tall Tina if you're keeping score, first waits patiently, then starts scrubbing pots, finishes that, then goes and drags some boxes of Christmas tumblers out of the back room and starts unpacking them onto the bare shelves. I really don't understand this urge to be doing the Christmas shopping at Starbucks. Who knew it was a Black Friday hot spot for something other than coffee?

What do they get after all this? A tall coffee and a plastic bottle of orange juice.

They wedge themselves into a chair not four feet from me, where Svetlana does the un-shod thing and plays footsie with about ten thousand germs on the floor in her aquamarine socks and then REALLY launch into it.

I have ZERO idea what is being said, but it was something good.

Tall Tina is making frappuccinos, which every Starbucks denize will know involves use of a blender. Svetlana doesn't let that stop her. Every time the blender goes up a notch, she cranks it up two decibels. When Little Apron Aaron starts up the coffee grinder for some yuppie hag in a black skirt and black cardigan (and probably starched black cotton underpants), she goes up three notches.

Svetlana could probably have screamed down a jackhammer going through the rubble of the the Winter Palace; she's a one-woman perestroika wrecking crew and woe betide the Politburo that got in HER way.

Ylena wasn't much quieter. Every decibel of Svetlana's was matched by one of her own. It was shriek and leap, shriek and leap - well, more like shriek, squeak and slurp, shriek, squeak and slurp. And that is not as nasty as it sounds. They yammer on for a while until someone comes in asking about a car with its lights on - which turns out to be Svetlana's.

She jumps up, AGAIN puts her sock-clad feet on the floor and fishes around for her shoes.

... and off into the night they go, the word JUICY sparkling in subtle fiery radiance across Ylena's buttocks as they vanished into the night.

Dame Edna MuuMuu and the condo board of doom

If you sit in a Starbucks long enough, some crazy is bound to come in and start screaming at the top of their lungs about something. That is an absolute guarantee that can be sworn on the sacred text of any religion that worships any deity on this planet or any planet circling any sun on any galaxy in this universe or any other in any reality. From now until the end of time.

Because insane people LOVE AN AUDIENCE. Look at Tom Cruise.

For starters, this woman is wearing a muumuu. A black muumuu with white and orange flowers that vaguely resemble chrysanthemums but could possibly be lilies or maybe even daisies. I don't know. Over this, she has a plastic yellow raincoat and then a black sequined cap. Shiny black sequins - like she stole a Liza Minnelli dress and made a dress out of it. The kicker is the glasses -

We've moved on the stories about her condo commandos. Who are apparently evil beyond all kinds of evil. I guess they planted some trees that block her view of the ocean and now she thinks that her equity has been ruined along with the view. Revenge schemes are running rampant. To wit:

1. 14 landscape architects, surveyors, designers, real estate agents and whatnot were called in and sent letters and demands were made to determine if these trees blocked her view.
2. She apparently physically threatened a woman on her condo board and demanded that the trees be chopped down.
3. Dame Edna MuuMuu starts soliciting the opinions of everyone around her in Starbucks on whether or not she should cut down the trees.
4. Dame Edna MuuMuu moves on to potential poison - of the trees - or possibly the condo commandos. She solicits the opinion of EVERYONE who walks by. Should she use Clorox? What about a few gallons of salt water? Maybe some weed killer?
5. Dame Edna MuuMuu goes back to thinking she should just use a chainsaw to cut down the trees, then ask the woman sitting next to her "Can I go to jail for that?" That sparks a lively conversation on "Just take care of the problem in the middle of the night."

This whole conversation is surreal.

Then, we get into a lengthy conversation about condo commandos and how Dame Edna MuuMuu used to own apartments in Boston and how she hates her neighbors and all sorts of stuff.

Then we get to the even better stuff.

Dame Edna MuuMuu even got arrested. Yes. One of these little tete-a-tetes apparently got so physical that someone - Cthulhu only knows who - called the cops. Which resulted in Dame Edna MuuMuu being hauled before the county judge and all sorts of questions going on.

Apparently the judge asked her "Why did you live there if you hate your neighbors so much?" To which the answer is: "They moved there after me. I didn't get a list. Now who's gonna pay for my property that they killed?" I never did hear what happened to the court case.

Then, we move on to some drama involving a swimming pool assessment, which she was "forced" to sign, apparently at gunpoint, to hear her tell it.

OK. I've been here for a good long time, and she's talked to a real estate agent, a lady with a house-sitting business, some kids on school vacation and some yuppies on vacation. Now she's moved on to some tourists. She loves to talk, even if it is about the weather.

I'm packing it in. I can only listen to Damn Edna MuuMuu for so long.

Starbucks Drama: Please don't change your baby's diaper on the table

Some things which once are seen cannot be unseen! By that, I mean the sight of a pregnant woman slinging a naked baby and a diaper full of baby poo around on a table where people eat food.

So Preggie Lady rolls in, with her friend the Retail Worker, who's wearing a wage slave outfit from a McJob establishment. Preggie Lady *already* has two howler monkeys and another in the oven.

While Retail McJob is ordering her morning coffee, Preggie Lady swipes a half a tray of the samples of the delicous donuts that they're offering up as samples off the counter and slaps them down in front of her toddler, who has ZERO interest in staying put in his chair. Seriously. She must have gotten nine or ten - which was probably a whole donut.

"Here, eat this if you're not going to eat your breakfast." ZOMG. My grandma would have beat me stupid if I didn't eat breakfast.

The howler monkey is not interested. He's more interested in crawling around on the floor. The floor which has been trod upon by people's feet all morning. Catch a disease and rid the world of your stupidity.

"Get up here. Don't do that. Stop crawling around down there." Her useless admonitions fall up on increasingly deaf ears. When your child has tuned out you out by three, you are NOT an effective parent at all. Beat them. Beat the with whips made of scorpions. Deprive them. Deprive them of toys and the electronic glow of the idiot box. Enforce your rules. Don't just babble at them. DO SOMETHING.

But he's a lost cause already.

The REAL drama is happening three feet above him.

Apparently, her one that's still in diapers (and yet, there's another one on the way!!) has made a poopsie.

What with her one howler monkey crawling around on the floor and Retail McJob trying to get a coffee, I guess there wasn't time to go to the bathroom and change the diaper.

So, what does she do?

Poopy Pants gets laid out on the Starbucks table and gets a diaper, a powder and a change. The whole world got a view of this. And then Mother Earth there COULD NOT BE BOTHERED to walk fifteen feet to the trash can and put the poopy diaper in the trash.

NO. NO. Nooooooooooooooo.

She decides to lay it ON THE TABLE UNTIL SHE'S READY TO LEAVE.

Remember that the next time you're at a Starbucks. There might have been baby poo on that table!

Baby poo.

Starbucks Drama: Big Bertha and the venti frappuccino

Ladies. If I can GET my drink BEFORE you finish ORDERING yours, then you have issues. More issues than Newsweek. More issues than any shrink could sort out in a year of sessions. HISH-SHOE-Z.

Firstly, I apparently hit the Starbucks at EXACTLY the wrong time. Every parking spot in the strip mall is filled and I wind up parking by the Target and hiking over. Fine. I need to work off the donut I'm going to eat. The drive through is pumping like an oil derrick and I nearly get run down by a woman in a purple subcompact with a baby in the front seat and a frappuccino in her paw. She's not looking at me at all. Good thing I'm looking at her ugly car ....

I get inside and it looks like there's been some sort of coffee filter free-for-all, with the whole beans heading for open revolt and the pasty case opening up a second front on the left flank and the customers going hell for leather toward Stupid-Ville.

The lobby is packed, every table is full, some adorable boy is editing video on a laptop at the comfy table I usually write at, the couches are full and three extremely frazzled baristas are trying to manage the drive-thru and a lobby packed with cranky customers.  I wedge myself in line only to get bumped by a woman-child who has six inches and 30 pounds on me (yes, that is ENTIRELY accurate) who's doing pirouettes in the lobby. Picture a rhinoceros in ratty blue jeans and a stained T-shirt. No. No. NO. For the last time, NO, she doesn't look like the dancing hippos from "Fantasia." Those were cute. Big Bertha wasn't. 

Obviously, it is "Take the Mentally Challenged Out for Coffee and Donuts Day" or something. Because this Big Bertha is just downright insane. Crazy or not, I wonder if she's a pickpocket and feel for my wallet. Still safe.

But the real drama starts to go down in front of me. At the register. Where all dark powers are conspiring to keep me from getting an iced mocha.

There's a ... I dunno ... "fiend" is suppose the best word. Although it is later revealed that she's either a barista or sleeping with one, because she has a partner discount. Call her Bridget Barista.

First, she rattles off a fifteen word drink order in a mumble. I'm standing right behind her deliberately trying to overhear the conversation and I can't pick it up. The barista trying to ring in the order, who has a drive-thru speaker in one hear, some crap-o-matic jazz and two blenders and assorted other noise, certainly can't.

So Bridget Barista heaves a *heavy* sigh, gives him a nasty stare and starts to speak slowly, but not any loudly. Tall. Double chocolate. Chocolate chip. Frappuccino. Add. Two pumps. Vanilla. And. Extra. Whipped. Cream.

That was only the first one.

The second one was just as complicated. Venti. Iced. Caramel. Macchiatto. With. Three. Pumps. Vanilla. And. Two. Extra. Shots. Add. Two. Pumps. Raspberry. Syrup. And. Extra. Caramel.

And she told the boy. "No. You don't need to ring in all those shots. Or the syrup. They never do that."

And when he kept doing it, then she played the partner card.

That receipt, for just two drinks, had to be at least a foot long. It looked like somebody bought a week's worth of groceries at Publix or something.

Fortunately for me, while this was unfolding, and I was shifting back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, with her mumbling something and him asking her to repeat it, and her looking at whatever came across the register and say "THAT'S NOT RIGHT" and then "YOU DON'T NEED TO RING IN THE SHOTS" when she'd see that there was a charge, another barista came on duty.

For the record, I don't think that the guy on register was a newbie. He seemed competent enough the rest of the night. This girl mumbled. I also don't think she was a real Starbucks barista - she just didn't have "barista" feel. Who tortures co-workers like that? Unless you hate them, of course!

So. This new girl hops on a register, takes my order, grabs my pastry and rings me out. The alleged Bridget Barista is still mumbling her "partner numbers" to get her discount to this poor guy and bitching about having to pay for vanilla syrup and extra shots. I'm staring at her extremely short denim skirt that's not nearly long enough - and the garish blue toenail polish and wondering what street corner she crawled in from when the tall dude that's making drinks calls my mocha.

Yes. I ordered, paid, got a pastry and then got a drink before she ever left the register. Wonder of wonders. She left with Big Bertha too - I think this was weird people night at the Starbucks.

Starbucks Drama: The Coffee and Cramps Club

Every now and again the coffee gods smile. And they smiled in a big way tonight. I stumbled onto something. Something so secret that you apparently had to sacrifice a pair of Payless to get in.

Some sort of women's club seems to be meeting at the Starbucks I choose to visit. Let's call it Coffee & Cramps - and no, I can't take the credit for that one.

Let's describe these women, shall we? Young ... "professionals" - and that is a kind, kind word. Some of these girls need lots of help. Lots of help. Hair, clothes, makeup, total body makeovers. Total personality makeovers. They're all dumb as dirt and about as interesting.

Well. Mud is interesting. I spent the better part of my youth making mud pies. My grandmother used to sigh with despair and make me strip off and would wash me down with the hose after a "mud-people" session in the fields behind her house. Childhood. Although to be honest, the closest these girls get to mud is the knockoff Elizabeth Arden mud-mask.

Frau Zebra, as I shall call her, is wearing something in aquamarine, with zebra trim around the collar and extending around the full length of her jacket. The zebra trim clashes violently with whatever light blue shade was chosen for the coat. Obviously, whatever blind Albanian created this faux Prada knockoff of a knockoff (it looked like a K-Mart knockoff of a JC Penney brand something) knew nothing about fashion.  Frau Zebra has chosen to complete the ensemble with cork zebra wedges that are a good three inches high. Yes. The wedges were zebra stripes. Please note that none of this is helped by the fact that she's barely five and a half feet tall and must be tipping the scales at close to 200 pounds.

There's Lady Leprechaun. She's tall and willowy and chooses to dress like a tree. Something floppy and shredded that hangs about her shoulders. Seriously. Her shoulders look like they were attacked by Edward Scissorhands in the throes of a grand mal seizure. And the thing started life as a Wal-Mart blouse to begin with. Aww. She's wearing white Keds. How cute.

There's HONGRY! Think of the hippos from "Hungry, Hungry Hippos. That's her. I can't quite describe what she's wearing. It is very " ... brown?" No. the more I look, it seems to be a green leaf pattern. Huh. Camouflage. She's very loud, as in she's a screamer. The very first thing she said when she sat down was "I'M HUNGRY. DOES THIS PLACE SERVE FOOD?" 

No darling. They just open up a fire hose of frappuccino and squirt it in your mouth. Back to her fashion. Well, I guess you could charitably call it a "peasant blouse." Or three peasant blouses. There's enough fabric there for a Christo project. Picture a jungle floor. Shades of dappled green and brown, with the sunlight shining serenely down through the trees and patterns of light and shadow dappling the jungle floor. Perhaps a few flowers. And now run a herd of wild pigs over it. That's her top. And she's wearing a battered pair of canvas shoes. Not in that ironic hippie way. And you could put a three-year-old child - or a full turkey dinner - in her bag. It is an enormous Wal-Mart sack version with no style whatsoever. It is also the color of baby poo.

There's Skanky, who was the first to arrive. She's dressed for the road - the side of the road that is. Six-inch stripper heels. She doesn't stay long as it turns out. She must have sized up the gathering and realized they these girls were a bit too "refined" for her. Or liable to blame her for stealing their husbands, boyfriends or possibly fathers.

Then there's Gladiatrix. She rolled in late, wearing something that would literally shatter that Vogue lady, what's her name, Anna Wintour. Completely shatter her. Gladiator sandals. A funky off-blue stone-washed denim skirt that BARELY covered her plentiful bum and a plain white tee top. And then a denim jacket in a completely different shade of blue. NEVER MIX YOUR DENIMS. It is like mixing blacks. It just looks WRONG.

These shoes were REALLY something to see. It looked like a dominatrix had gone to town on her toes. Seriously. With leather. To top it off, she had on sparkly gold toenail polish. And a gold toe ring.

There's one normal girl. She's wearing a Banana Republic long-sleeve button down and a nice pair of blue jeans. Wonder what's going on inside her head?

What are they talking about?

"Women problems." Isn't that enough?

HONGRY!, aside from immediately launching into a dissertation on her favorite coffee shop food and discussing why she didn't like Starbucks because they DO NOT serve food like OTHER coffee shops. No darling, you don't want a coffee shop, you want a CAFE that serves COFFEE. See?

HONGRY! was walking about her medical issues. Apparently, she and her man are trying to get the pregnant, because they want to inflict the howler monkey genes upon the rest of the planet. But Hongry can't get pregnant because she has bad hormones. So Hongry has been going to the doctor twice a week for the past six months. Apparently, the doctor has told her to start exercising as well. Doesn't seem to have been working.

First up was softball. Funny, these girls don't look like the "softball" type. They all look very soft, very lipsticky, even "HONGRY." They complain a lot. Banana Republic pulled her shoulder playing softball with her boyfriend. Figures she'd be the one still with a boyfriend.

We've moved on to social networking. Oh. Maybe not. Banana Republic's boyfriend got in trouble for not "logging out" on some sort of work program. I can't follow this conversation at all. The music in here isn't any better and it is too damn loud. DON'T THEY KNOW.

OH. OH. OH. Apparently, Banana Republic's boyfriend thought he was sending some private emails and he was sending it on the company account. And he was talking to one of his man friends and calling some TV girl "Delicious" or something. Well. That'll get you fired. Real fast.

C'mon. I want to hear something juicy. They're just playing with their coffee cups.

Apparently Lady Leprechaun has traveled. She's been to Amsterdam, because she graces the table with the fact that "In Amsterdam, they eat their French fries with mayonnaise." This fact gets a big laugh, and then she has to explain that they eat fries out of a bag. No. Really. They do it in England to. And THEY CALL THEM CHIPS. IT IS A DELICACY. And they put malt liquor on it. Oh my stars. Do they not watch TV? Or read a paper? Venturing into Africa (any part of the continent), India or China would shatter their brains.

Frau Zebra hasn't said a word. She just sort of looks at girls when they talk, sort of like a tennis match. She has big eyes. Blonde hair. I just noticed that it is a bleach job though. Either that, or she's trying for that early '90s "Friends" look that Jennifer Aniston patented, where you had two different strands of color on either side of your face. She's blonde all over and two dark strands right there.

All these women have gigantic purses. I thought small purses were back? These purses are literally huge - I mean, they're the size of my laptop bag.

Banana Republic says that she worked at a rental company. Ohhh. People allegedly want furnished houses now. Because of the foreclosures.  That was .... uninteresting. For girl talk, this is quite the NOT fascinating time. Maybe I'm just missing every third word or something. Sorry. Drifted off. They're talking about some apartment Banana Republic rented to a client or something. There's a bunch of women getting together and they're talking about a rented apartment. Not who's doing what in a rented apartment, but the fact that this rented apartment has a nice view of a retention pond. Boy. These girls have some fascinating lives.

Oh. I forgot #7. Let's call her Goldie, because every time I look at her, I get the glint of fake bling from her neck, her ears, her bracelet and her rings. Seriously. And her hair. She's probably going to give either Lady Gaga or Christina Aguilera a run for her money in the "bleach my scalp" sweepstakes.

BREAKING! BREAKING! BREAKING!

HONGRY! lasted 67 minutes before breaking down and going back for seconds. She's eating a very large wedge of cake and sucking on a juice box.

Frau Zebra is gone. The lions of the Serengheti have claimed her. She had 15 years (and that was being kind) on these girls.

It just hit me. Every one of these girls, with the exception of HONGRY!, is blonde. No wonder the conversation is pale. There's literally nothing between their ears.

FINALLY! We get to half-way interesting stuff. Pee and poop.

HONGRY! apparently already has one kid. Who isn't toilet trained. No. Wait. It is a dog. So hard to tell. But I distinctly heard her say "pad." Kids don't use "pads" do they, only dogs?

So. Apparently, she's been trying to toilet train the dog, but it won't go outside. No. It is a CAT. And she is trying to TRAIN THE CAT TO GO IN THE TOILET.

OK. I've heard that that is possible. But wow.

Ok. I think I got this all sorted out.

1. HONGRY! has a cat.
2. HONGRY! is trying to toilet-train the cat to go in the toilet instead of the litter box.
3. HONGRY!'s cat is resisting going into the toilet.
4. HONGRY!'s cat is fighting back by making little kitty tinkles all over her apartment. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
5. HONGRY! caught the cat making a little kitty tinkle somewhere in the bedroom and tried to punish it, and the cat attacked her. Well, what the hell did she expect, interrupting a cat in mid-tinkle?

*SIGH* HONGRY! is back to talking about her bloodwork. Oh.

Oh. Thank you. No. Shredded Shoulders Leprechaun has diarrhea. I really didn't need to hear that.

And now down the rabbit hole we go. Women problems. This is the phrase of the night "IF YOU'RE BLEEDING DON'T TELL ME." Well. Apparently Banana Republic's man has to constantly remind her of that, because she's wont to talk about her "feminine issues."

You can't top that.

HONGRY! just mimed swinging a feminine product around like a lasso. I can't believe that I typed that sentence. I really need to stop typing. And they've moved on, quickly, thank you.

Visitors, from Chicago, and where to take them.

I drifted off there for a while. They were checking their phones. I checked mine. I got bored. They are boring.

Oh. I came in on the end of something. Let me try to reconstruct it.

HONGRY! was holding court on her favorite topic. Food, of course. She gives a SERMON on free-range turkey.  Apparently, she serves nothing but free-range and organic at her house. The way she eats, her food bill must be gigantic if she only eats certified organic. I can drop $75 at Whole Foods and not cover the bottom of one of those buggies. Heck. I can drop that and get two wedges of cheese, a box of barbecue from the takeout bar and a cupcake. That's $75. It has happened.

Now they're planning the next little "Coffee & Cramps" event. Hopefully, the next one will not involve the Wonder Woman impression with a pretend tampon. They want to make name tags.

Oh. Oh. Oh. These heifers are talking about not wearing "cheap jewelry" and "cheap makeup."

PUH-LEEZE.

HONGRY! is talking about some sort of lotion that you have to wash and apply every day? Not sure what's going on there. I thought that all makeup was "take it off at night?" Not that I know makeup. Seriously.

They do all have good complexions, even if they all DESPERATELY, DESPERATELY need someone to take their hair in hand. I MEAN THAT WITH ALL SERIOUSNESS LADIES.

A good hot oil treatment is your friend.

SHAMPOO ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH. These girls, their hair looks rough. Every one of them. The economy has obviously been hitting them hard, because they've been skimping on the hairdresser and trying to do it at home. And they're not even buying the good hair care products. You can always tell. OH MY GOD. I'M PRESCIENT. Banana Republic just mentioned "I get my hair cut at SuperCuts."

Now Sparkles is telling the other girls where she goes. None of them have what you'd call a "stylist." Well, obviously. Sparkles "has a guy" in Cape Coral. She has a nice cut, but her hair is like Sahara dry.  Gladiator Sandals - and I'm staring right at the back of her head - needs to first wash her hair and then do something with her roots and split ends. Leprechaun has bleached hers into submission, but it is fighting back - and the mousy brown is winning.

Two super-skinny fashion model types just clicked in wearing skinny jeans and some BANGING shoes. (Charlotte Russe, I asked!) Everyone one of these girls turned and stared, with those jealous/disapproving looks that said "WHY ARE YOU LOOKING TRASHY AND TRYING TO STEAL OUR MEN?" and "WHY CAN'T I LOOK THAT GOOD AGAIN?"

Because you girls sacrificed your size zeros for sorority girl parties, Miller Lite at frat parties and then children, Spaghetti-O's and margaritas. Not to mention you all have frappuccinos in front of you. And despite the fact that you don't have decent hair, you are all probably wearing more money than these girls make in a month. Seriously. Unless they REALLY ARE hookers, then all bets are off.

OK. The Coffee & Cramps Club is breaking up.

Starbucks Drama: Mommy Laptop and the Entourage

Do whatever you want with your children - except abuse or eat them. But please control them in public. This is one of my pet peeves and I will harp on it with all the power of an aggrieved peasant supplicating the queen of England. PLEASE CONTROL YOUR HOWLER MONKEYS.

I'm already exhausted from battling traffic for the forty miles of bad road between Naples and Fort Myers when I hit the Starbucks for a quick coffee and a snack.

What awaits me OUTSIDE the door but a miniature version of Brett Favre? Minus the comebacks, of course. And the Super Bowl rings. But apparently with the arm.

Which he was all to happy to demonstrate by heaving a football into anything that stayed in one place long enough for him to target it for a pass downfield.

Display of holiday coffees. Touchdown. Five bags of coffee on the floor, one huffy barista.

Potted plant in the corner? Six points! Assorted shrubbery in tatters. More huffy baristas.

Big pail of coffee grounds? This was reserved for the spike at the END of the play - at which point everybody got the scent - and sight - of coffee grounds and the baristas got to practice their cleaning skills.

Where was mama? Apparently either working on her NaNoWriMo masterpiece about Lord Sheldon Shoveldrake and Lady Myrna Muddlepuck and the burning desire of that will soon ignite the barren moors overseen by Silverwind Hall. The passion. It burns in their hearts.

Obviously. It burnt in hers too at point, because there is a second howler monkey that belongs to her now playing in the left-behind coffee grounds. No one said these baristas were that good at sweeping.

Oh. This must be a Biblical sackcloth and ashes scene - the girl has her Barbie(TM) and is drizzling the coffee grounds in the hair! HAHAHAHA. She's also missing a shoe for some reason. The child, not the doll. Let me tell you. My cousin had about 40 Barbie dolls - and she never could keep them shod. Poor shoeless Barbies. Forced to wander barefoot through the snow, calling aimlessly for Ken, who was out with Skipper in that sweet Barbie convertible.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh. Mommy Writer. Who is banging away on her laptop - for which I congratulate her. Maybe she's running an eBay business? Maybe she's selling one of the kids into slavery? PLEASE?


But the kids are stinking up the joint. Brett Jr. is pitching the football everywhere. After throwing it at everything inside, including about three feet from my foot and getting a look that would melt brass - he retreats outside. Mommy Writer never looks up.

This is how Balloon Boy parents are created. Seriously. He's happily bouncing the football off the store doors without a care in the world while Sister Coffee Grounds is inside, now taking the Barbie that's got a full head of nappy coffee ground hair and smearing that all over the door.  That poor Starbucks Via girl. So abused. First no one wants to sample her, then no one wants to buy her - and now she's getting it from both sides.

And there's Mommy Writer, sitting there, typing away.

Wait, she's shutting down, apparently before the precious little angels get kidnapped. Fat chance. They'd get returned. With interest.

And here's the kicker.

Her wallpaper? OH MY GOD, THERE'S APPARENTLY ANOTHER ONE.

The wallpaper is her three howler monkeys in that classic "Three Wise Monkeys" pose. They're sitting on some hideously upholstered couch and posed with their hands doing the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" thing.

Well ... someone needs to rethink that. Not that her children are evil. They're not. Just mischevous. But really .....

Starbucks Drama: The Mocha Calls at Midnight

Let me continue the theme of "bad barista" that seems to have dominated here lately.

I stopped of earlier for a quick iced mocha. This wasn't a writer stop, nor a coffee and conversation with friends. I just wanted coffee.

And in this, I was thwarted. At least momentarily. 

Now, I love most of my baristas. To a large degree, I hold to the thought that you should treat the people that serve your food better than family. THEY HANDLE YOUR FOOD. I certainly treat them better than my brother - I deign to speak to them! :) And I give them money. Tips - large tips - will get you everywhere.

So. Where was I? TRYING to get a coffee.

I'm chatting with Fauxhawk. Who is normally quite pleasant. I know all about his two dogs, his broke-down car and all his hair colors. We are cool like that. But he's still supposed to be slinging some coffee. Which he usually does with alacrity. But I guess this was an off day. Or else he was having a case of the Saturdays.

I order. I pay. He moves over to the copper espresso machines and starts to work. He asks if I want the extra shot and I answer in the affirmative.

Then, a telephone rings. And this isn't the Starbucks phone.

It is his cell phone, which I notice is lying on top of of the bin of coffee beans. Yes. Yes. Right there. Cute little iPhone, bright yellow rubberized case. Right there.

Fauxhawk doesn't even look at me. He just scoops the phone up, crooks it in his ear and starts talking.

Oh, and he keeps on pulling espresso shots while he's doing this.

"No, I can't go out tonight."

"No. Really. I can't. NO. I said I can't. I have to open in the morning. I can't go out and get trashed and work all day." At least he's responsible (somewhat).

"No. I'm at work, but it is OK." Really. In what universe is it OK? I guess since I heard about his dogs that it was OK?

We keep going. I mean, I wanted a coffee. Of course, heading out (or rather, not heading out) that night was a matter of GRAVE import that whoever was on the other end of that night just COULD NOT understand why he could not and would not agree to go out.

Pouring the shots into the drink? On the phone. Arguing.

Mixing the mocha and the milk? On the phone. Still arguing.

Adding the ice? On the phone. Moved on to what's going on later tomorrow.

Lid and straw? On the phone. Talking about last night.

Me thanking him? On the phone. Boyfriend and girlfriend trouble. Apparently, everybody has HISH-YEWS. I'ze bouts to have some issues up in here too.

Me leaving? Still on the phone. Don't care.

Me fifteen miles down the road? Probably still on the phone. Don't know. Really don't care.

Wherefore art thou, Starbucks Gold

As did much of the rest of the Starbucks blogosphere, I reacted with clutched pearls when the news broke last week at the coffee giant was changing up its rewards program.

Those ever-so-nifty Starbucks Gold cards - they're black, embossed with a gold Starbucks cup - probably to emulate those SUPER-EXCLUSIVE Amex Black cards, are (or rather, WERE) sort of like an uber-Starbucks card.

Ten percent off everything in the store. All the time. Every drink. Every pastry. Every sandwich. All day, every day. It was totally worth it. And if you bought beans or coffee, ten percent. As a bonus, if you used it JUST ONCE A MONTH, you got free WiFi. Are we clear on this? FREE WIFI AT STARBUCKS.

For spending money you were going to spend anyway. Listen. I'm at Starbucks all the time. You better believe I figured out real quick how to get some WiFi up in there.

There was also another Starbucks Rewards program - for "regular" Starbucks cards. This one got you free syrups, free soy milk and the free WiFi - but NOT the 10-percent discount. For the caffeine-addicted, like me - the lure of 10% was totally worth the $25 price tag for Starbucks Gold.

Apparently, most of America agreed - because the program must have exceeded all expectations. Because they're killing it.

They're hiding it under the usual blah-blah-blah about how "people want to be rewarded for getting a free coffee every xxx" - and Starbucks will indeed give you a free coffee every 15 coffee - IF YOU PAY WITH A STARBUCKS CARD. Cash or credit? You're out of luck. They want to track you and track you HARD baby. Buying patterns is what this is ALL ABOUT. Don't let them spin it any other way.

BUT I AM MISSING THE POINT. THE POINT. THE POINT. THE POINT. I ALWAYS MISS THE POINT!


I went to Starbucks this past weekend and felt the need to "freshen up."

Imagine my shock (and awe) to find that there, in the bathroom, lied the sad remains of the Starbucks Gold program.

I've been to this Starbucks a half-dozen times over the past month - and there's never been a basket in the bathroom. Now, it holds the sad, sad remains of the Starbucks Gold program and some random AT&T brochures. And a few Starbucks Duetto brochures - they better not cut that out.

Anyway. The Starbucks Gold program is officially kaput. I'm actually not out anything - because they sent me one for free. They ought to have - I probably kept at least one location afloat on the back of triple venti raspberry white chocolate mochas for about four years. And it has been nothing but iced mochas for the past year. Sometimes three a day. Add the donuts and the occasional sandwich, plus what I buy for friends, and I ran past $25 in savings in about a month. Of course, they made far, far more off of me.

Still, it isn't like I'm going to roll in to Dunkin Donuts. Or worse, McDonalds. *shudder* No outlets, no adorable baristas in the vein of Vintage Billy Idol and worse, no iced venti mochas and yummy pastries. McDonalds in the coffee game. I scoff at thee!
Alas, poor Starbucks Gold, I knew him, Horatio!

Starbucks Drama: What You Missed

Look people. Leave a comment. Make me feel loved. Think of the children. LEAVE A COMMENT. Please. Back the Starbucks Drama. Not my drama. Ya'll couldn't handle that. Seriously.

• Two weeks ago, we (my various personalities and the poltergeist that lives in my apartment, which I am now calling Kwanisha) visited Starbucks in time for the great Toilet Paper Incident of 2009. Reading all my posts from the past two week - including this one, where the barista in charge of the store was COUNTING MONEY IN THE SAFE while her colleague threw rolls of toilet paper at her - makes me wonder if those security cameras actually work. Remember that when your barista grabs that last slice of pound cake with his or her dirty hands!

• Oh. She-Wolf and Man-Child. The cigarette-smoking dilettantes that I wanted to jump up, go outside and slap, especially after she blew smoke all over about four tables. The boy I just wanted to jump up, go outside and jump. Figure it out.

• Then, there was another attack of the calorie-counting missionaries. God save me from a bunch of pursed-lip, unhappy, miserable traveling calorie counters. We're all going to hell. Travel in style on the frappuccino express!

• Real life started getting in the way, so I swept up a few hours worth of #Starbucks tweets and organized them into a three-act Twitter opera. Only one person seemed to appreciate the slavish work and devotion. I enjoyed it - would anyone like a regular feature - if only to see the insanity that passes for "intelligent chatter" on Twitter?

• Everyone seemed to like the "Heather Has Two Mommies" post. I still haven't figured out what particular bit of craziness was being perpetrated. As long as the howler monkey wasn't coming in my direction - I'm fine with it. Although I still maintain the kid needed a smack on the bottom.

• My favorite of the month - and of all time, next to the insane sugar freaks that were eating frappuccinos with spoons - was the full on macking of Charles the Chin and how poorly he attempted to woo Little Apron Aaron. For the uneducated, I actually did research and made many historical references. Read it, for thou shalt become educated!

• I must NOT forget Vintage Billy Idol and the Unabomber. I think he likes me - Vintage Billy Idol - not the Unabomber (that one's very meh). I've gotten a free pound cake and and a free coffee in two visits. If only he knew who Ron Jeremy was. And didn't try to involved me in the conversations about Ron Jeremy's "assets" - or tennis matches behind the Starbucks counter. Barista antics - they never get old.