What do you confess to your Starbucks barista?

Starbucks is always a "fashion-forward" place. So fashion-forward that the "forward" extends all the way around to the backward.

For instance, right now, I'm looking at a couple of women who are rolling around in track suits - which are perfectly acceptable - and dragging some screechy howler monkeys in pajamas - which is NOT acceptable. And this is not "comfortable playwear." This is a pair of pajamas. And one of the howlers is doing pull-ups on the hand-off bar. Maybe a scalding-hot cup of coffee will dissuade her of the error of her ways. People need to *control* they howler monkeys.

But howler monkeys and fashion crimes are not the point - although I did see an awful pair of lime green velour track pants earlier that were a gross insult to every woven fabric since the beginning of time, every color with even the slightest hint of relation to green and anything containing chlorophyll that might conceivably be called a "lime." Heinous. HAAAY-NUUUS.

Plus, her behind was two sizes too large for the pants, which the rear in question look like a bullfrog with a glandular problem.

BUT I DIGRESS.

I'm eavesdropping on the Pippi Longstocking character that rolled in to order a tall cappuccino. She's the chatty type and is yammering it up to the bored barista, who starts off the conversation just nodding, before her eyes start getting wider - and wider - and wider - to the point that I wonder if she's going to turn into one of those anime girls.

Pippi Longstocking truly does have the Pippi Longstocking hair. Tight braids going at 45-degree angles out the back of her head behind the ears. They even have a good bit of lift to them. I don't even know how tight hair has to *be* braided for that. Pippi (the real Pippi, the one yammering on here in the Starbucks), has on a gray dress with some ginormous blue flowers on it and gray leggings. It is the sort of thing Carrie Bradshaw would wear if she were outfitted by K-Mart instead of Patricia Field.

She's babbling to the barista and then I hear this. "So my dad was out with his mistress." The girl's eyes got wide.

"... and then he ran into his wife." The girl's eyes got wider. I perked up, because, you know, I love some good family drama.

"and she was with SOMEONE ELSE." We're at anime eyes here on the barista, and I'm at the point where I want to go up and ask Pippi "Excuse me, can you just sit down over here and talk for a while? I want to make sure I get the details right."

Pippi keeps going while the barista is making the cappuccino - which I am SORELY disappointed is not one of those complicated concoctions that require mixing and multiple espresso shots, or possibly a blender and things.

These are the key points. As I understand them - because the blasted howler monkeys picked that EXACT moment to start screeching. Put a banana it howlers!

1. Daddy Longstocking and the Mommy Longstocking still live together. (for the moment)
2. Mommy Longstocking is worth a bundle; Daddy Longstocking is the brains, but doesn't actually have the family money, even though he manages the company business. I think that's how it rolls. Coffee grinder, blender + screaming children.

3. Mommy Longstocking just spends the money, plays tennis and shops a lot.
4. Daddy Longstocking is upset over the situation - and decided to take a mistress.
5. Daddy Longstocking and Mistress Pantyhose were out on Fifth Avenue one night.
6. Daddy Longstocking and Mistress Pantyhose RUN INTO Mommy Longstocking and HER boytoy, who is apparently not that old.
7. Up to that point, NEITHER Daddy Longstocking NOR Mommy Longstocking knew that the other one was playing away games in somebody else's sock drawer.
8. And apparently, the bureau drawer is now in the process of being divided. According to the terms of the pre-nup, Daddy Longstocking is probably going to get a sock with a hole in the toe and little else.
9. And with that, Pippi Longstocking took her tall cappuccino and flounced out.

Baristas are better confidantes than hairdressers - and the coffee costs less than a haircut!

Where's Waldo? Homeless at Starbucks

So. I'm hanging out at the Starbucks with a friend from work. First, because it is a nicely cool night, we try the cafe tables outside. (Iced venti mocha for me, caramel brulee latte for them).

Wrong. It is like a wind tunnel out there, and we're last week's band flyers advertising a show in a too-trendy-for daylight underground club that fluttered down off a telephone pole somewhere in Hell's Kitchen and are now skittering down some back alley in the Meatpacking District. Plus, the patio is empty and we want some drama.

We move inside.

Something male, greasy, smelly, disheveled and clothed in culottes and what looked for all the world like a "Where's Waldo" red-and-white striped polo and black leather gloves (the fingerless gloves really made this outfit!) was slumped in one of the three pseudo-comfy chairs. (This Starbucks doesn't have "comfy chairs," just high-backed armchairs, sort of like what you'd see in a Victorian study.)

He's also wearing a couple layers of flannel, which get progressively more rumpled. One is sort of purple and black. Another is maybe a green print. Over all this, there's a black faux-leather bomber jacket that looks like it came off the rack at wherever Wal-Mart clothes go when they're looking for a deal. The closest this thing ever came to sharing ancestry with leather was the "oooo" sound in "faux leather" and the letter "o" in cow."

The pants are *impressive* - they're a muted aqua, cut off with scissors somewhere around the calves and the feet are shoved into black orthopedic clodhoppers, which he's slung up on the coffee table that's tucked into this little nook behind the hand-off bar. Let that be ANOTHER LESSON (as if we needed one) - never, ever, ever, ever, put food on the bare tables at Starbucks.

We walk over and he has his feet up on the table. He has obviously claimed the corner for himself, although those are the two nicest chairs in the place. What do you do? Do you interrupt him or not? And thus, our dilemma.

I don't mean to be judgmental. Yes. I do. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. People judge every second of their lives. Some just hide it better than others. He's a bum, a skinny, could-pass-for-a-hipster-with-a-bad-haircut bum, but still a bum. He's dressed like a hoyden (although that hardly counts for much nowadays). He doesn't have a drink, a laptop or a paper. It is cold outside and warm in the Starbucks. Paying customers come first. Especially THIS PARTICULAR PAYING CUSTOMER!

We sit down and he gives us an ugly look, like "WHO ARE YOU TO INTERRUPT MY RUDE FEET ON TABLE SITTING?" It wasn't like he was sleeping.

I give him one of my looks, like "OK. AND?" And to be perfectly honest, I probably would have plonked down if he'd have been a woman in a business suit. Coffee house chairs are like real estate - possession is nine-tenths of the law - and the person arguing the other tenth has to prove it with a lawyer.

I figured he would scram once we started talking. I don't really care if people listen to me talk. But no. Waldo decides he wants to listen in - and then join in - the conversation.

I'm describing the fantastic sight that I saw earlier in the day - the skinny old-man hooker-thing with the full beard, silver hoop earrings, silver sequin cap, black sequin jeans and black sequin top, high heels and beaded bag that I saw sashaying down Goodlette when Waldo jumps in. "I SAW THAT MAN TOO. I KNOW HIM. I SEE HIM ALL THE TIME."

Heads swivel. Eyebrows raise. "Uh. OK. Thanks for that." His contribution made, he finally wanders off to some other chair.

We chat for about an hour. As we leave, we see him headed right back over to the same spot he occupied when we arrived. I think I saw him going over to a car a few minutes later and wonder if it is within the realm of possibility that he's running a "business" out of the Starbucks. You never, ever know. My guess is homeless or near-homeless though.

The night at Starbucks, by the numbers

1 - customer in this Starbucks (as of 8:29 p.m.)

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22 minutes - time between me and the next customer
2 - the number of ugly gray clogs the skinny and otherwise inoffensive middle-aged man is wearing.
15 - barista stockings hanging from the drop lights over the coffee bar. That's a lot of baristas
1 - minutes between him and the next customer, an Indian girl in a hurry who is going to clean out the cold case of orange juice
2 - baristas in this Starbucks
2 - baristas in this Starbucks who are complaining and want to go home early

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3 - Starbucks beverages I have enjoyed today
1 - grande espresso chocolate truffle ($4.05)
1 - iced venti no whip mocha ($3.86)
1 - grande white chocolate mocha ($4.05)
$11.96 - the total amount I've spent on Starbucks today. That is too much. Really, that IS too much. I have got to learn to get up a half an hour earlier and make a mocha at home. I just can't get the whole syrup thing right though. Plus, where is the drama?
$1.39 - discounts I've enjoyed today, courtesy of my personal tumbler, and the Starbucks Gold card. Yes, thank you, glory to Cthulhu on high, the old lady barista remembered my discount this afternoon without me having to ask.
7 - minutes until the next customers, unattractive Yankee tourists, who are wearing matching red & green Christmas sweaters. He's bald and she's got doll hair.
3 - hospital armbands on the wrist of the freaky homeless guy
23 - other empty chairs in the Starbucks
1 - chair by me, where he chooses to sit and browse the newspaper
700 - warring odors emanating from him, including the indescribable smell of body odor bathed in a warm wash of garlic, with splashes of stinky feet, six-week-old milk, baby poo and rancid meat that's been left in a turned-off refrigerator in a locked house in the middle of a Louisiana summer for a month.
6 - minutes homeless guy stands by the condiment bar, secreting the packages, until the baristas chase him off
2 - minutes until more legitimate legal (16 will get you 20, and I'm starting to wonder just how old she was) customers come in
20 - year age-difference between these two, and I pray that they are father/daughter, although the longer they're here, the more I doubt it. She is fidgeting with her short-shorts with a practiced hand.
3 - sizes too small, the shirt on this woman that just came in. I can see every seam on the supporting garment for the boulders bra underneath. Not. Subtle. At. All. Until this very moment, I didn't know that the word "sheer" could be used to describe sweaters. Perversely, she's got a wool scarf big enough to cover Rhode Island wrapped around her neck
17 - minutes until the next customers come in, a moderately large middle-aged woman clutching a sunflower-embossed pocketbook like it holds the very secrets of life in it. It may. If it has a gold Amex card with a moderately large credit line, then I might have a moderately large number of purchase to make. PS: That venti hot chocolate with whip cream and sprinkles isn't helping your hips. Mine either, but hey, who's counting? After all, "Fat is a Feminist Issue." And they call her order, and she sits in the comfy chair reading the paper. I hope someone steals them.
3 - customers at once at 9:32 p.m. Any plans these baristas had to shove the customers out the door and run for their cars themselves has been derailed. I, however, shall leave.

Yo-yo, yo the Starbucks boat!

There is an amazing talent of human beings to be totally oblivious to people who are watching them. I'm not talking about people who are *really* into something, like a book or work or a movie - situations where you probably need to be concentrating - but the whole "I'm in public but I don't give a fig who's watching me. Thus, the yo-yo lady.

I'm rolling into the urban Starbucks, which is fast becoming my favorite place, if only it didn't involve an 85-mile round trip. (I can only go there when I'm already in that area for other, work-related things)

There's a woman yo-yoing in the middle of the joint.

I should mention that this is one of those Starbucks carved out of a pre-existing building, so it is like threading a needle to get around in there. Narrow doesn't quite describe it. There's the register - and then the condiment bar is two steps away. There's a long bar that looks out on the street, with barstools so you can people watch.

Yo Yo Ma (wait, that might be libel) Yo-Yo Grande has parked herself in front of the condiment bar and is "performing" for a group of people on the barstools. She's also blocking traffic like a champ. She's also bad. Very, very, very bad. Baaaaaaaaaaaaad.

Sarah Palin as vice-presidential candidate bad.

Al Gore as presidential candidate bad.

Jimmy Carter as president bad.

That bad. Uh-huh. I said it. He won a Nobel. That came later. He still stunk up the joint and paved the way for Ron-Ron and voodoo economics. Deal with it.

I edge by, because this skinny cow ain't moving. You all will be happy to know that I resisted the urge to hip-check her into the creamer and half-and-half. I'll just write about her.

I'm ordering and reminding the cute but stupid barista about my personal cup discount when I hear a *thunk* followed by another *thunk* and then another *thunk* and yet another *thunk* - lots of these noises.

I look, because the cute but stupid barista is slow making the drink and Yo-Yo Grande is not really yo-yoing, as I first thought.

She's trying, I'll give her that. She's winding up the yo-yo, then dropping it, trying to get it to unspool and wind back up.

Only it slams the floor. *THUNK*

Back up again. Back down again. *THUNK*


Back up again. Back down again. *THUNK*

Poor Yo-Yo Grande. Only it doesn't really connect. She keeps trying. And she keeps making noise. *THUNK*

And it shouldn't have surprised me. It was a moderately chilly night. Yo-Yo Grande was wearing a black spaghetti-strap mini-dress with festive red and white striped knee-high socks and what looked for all the world like ballet flats. Pink ballet flats, mind you.

I didn't see a coat.

Neither did I see a minder. Maybe she had wandered away from the crazy place and just wanted a latte. I can't imagine the coffee in those place is pretty good. 

Where did she get the yo-you though? Don't they take the string away, so the patients can't strangle themselves?

I ate and drank and left. She was still there, *THUNK*-ing the yo-yo and walking the imaginary dog. I wish she were crazy, but I really do think she was just not able to yo-yo.

Your Starbucks barista is watching you!

UPDATE: One of my more knowledgeable readers points out that the car in the video is probably a Lamborghini Gallardo, possibly the 2009 model. Here's a photo:
http://images.thecarconnection.com/med/lamborghini_100183379_m.jpg

After comparing the two photos, I'm reasonably confident of that as well. I just want to know what a Lamborghini is doing rolling through a Starbucks. Shouldn't they have *people* to being doing the coffee-fetching?

The MSRP of one of these puppies is $198,000 -- or roughly the consumer price equivalent of 45,000 Venti iced mochas (my regular). If I did that math right - you never know. There's a reason I was a liberal arts major. ($4.40 into $198,000, can someone check that?) You know, I'm walking around on the outside of one of these things right now, as much Starbucks as I drink. Seriously.

I don't know what kind of car this is, but this is seriously one happy barista. He's booking it outside to film the car as it leaves the drive-through.

Here's the tweet on Twitter:

@danielhead: http://twitvid.com/5E31D - Looked what rolled through the #starbucks drive-thru this morning. :p so, so, so flippin awesome/cool....one day | Link to Tweet

Starbucks has "a little bit of a bean issue"

Please, my green apron gods, is it too much to ask for a minimum level of competence? I truly do understand that it isn't as simple as "making coffee." I worked at the House of Wal for three years and BELIEVE ME it is nothing as easy as "scan and bag." So help me god, I will never make fun of a cashier again.

But for the love of Cthulhu, if you've been slinging espresso for six months, you'd think you know how to put beans in the coffee-maker by now.

I go down to my regular Starbucks and get Tall Tina and Quiet Quinn, who I'm starting to wonder if he might not be "quiet" but "slow."

I hand over my personal cup - which he takes and rings up properly AND REMEMBERS THE PERSONAL CUP DISCOUNT - PRAISE BE, GLORY TO SHIVA ON HIGH.

Tall Tina is mopping out the bathrooms. Anything to get away from customers I guess. Although when I worked retail, I'd rather be on the register, because at least you were busy - and the idiot managers couldn't find some nasty "special projects" for you to do.

Anyway. I wander over to the handoff bar and start toying with the idea of buying one of these adorable stuffed Starbucks bears. They're like sooooo cute. And I look up and Quiet Quinn is banging on the lid of the big square espresso machines and standing on his little tippy-toes peering into the bean hoppers.

Picture a small, rotund, cherubic-faced child, balanced on a chair, reaching, straining, just getting the edge of his nose over the edge of the cookie jar. That's about what it looked like. Only this is a twenty-something with a full-time job and the responsibility of reliably dispensing your caffeine every morning.

He looks down at the hopper and looks up at me. He presses a few buttons and looks down at the hopper and looks up at me and asks "Are you in a hurry? There's a little bit of a bean issue here."

Let me repeat that.

"There's a little bit of a bean issue here."

Quiet Quinn, who I now recall from the "Who eats a frappuccino with a spoon?" adventure, had to go fetch Tall Tina and ask her "What do I do?"

She says, and I quote: "Pour some beans in the machine."

America. This is what our education system has wrought. I COULD HAVE TOLD HIM THAT.

Apparently, that wasn't broken down *enough* though, because she had to put down the mop, come over, wash her hands, cut open the bag of beans and pour them into the machine before he was able to successfully press the rest of the buttons and dispense my drink.


"There's a little bit of a bean issue here." That is my new catchphrase.

Me vs. Starbucks baristas: The personal cup WAR

I really try to keep this whole thing about my observations - because I don't suffer from the misconception that I'm all that interesting. I can tell a good story - but I'm not THE good story.

But I am going to forcibly remove the head of the next Starbucks barista that forgets my personal cup discount and pour a vat of that crappy instamatic dried coffee they're passing off as "Starbucks Via" down the hole and scream blue murder.

That is my eleven cents. MINE. Not yours. Mine. Do you keep it? Seriously people. I WANT TO KNOW. I DEMAND TO KNOW.

Starbucks sells those mugs and tumblers like crosses at a Baptist convention. There's a special button ON THE REGISTER for "personal mug discount," yet I have been to not one, not two, but FOUR - COUNT THEM - FOUR - Starbucks in the past THREE days where I have had to politely "remind" baristas about my discount.

This is how the conversation usually goes. Entertainment value aside, the basic interactions are the same. I worked retail for three years; I will never yell, scream or be rude. Although some of these baristas are starting to sorely try my patience.

BARISTA: "Greetings earthling. Welcome to the Green Apron Planet. I am Coffeebot 9000. I am programmed to espresso beans and subsist on Vivanno and stale pastry. What may I dispense for you today? Would you like a pairing? Please god get a pairing and buy some Starbucks Via or they'll throw me in the blender! ANYTHING BUT THE BLENDER!"
ME: "Iced-venti-no-whip-mocha. And I have a cup."

BARISTA: "Thank-you."
ME: Looks at the barista. Hands them the cup. Holds the lid. Ponders again the stupidity of the design of the tumbler, because I'm LITERALLY left holding the lid while they make the drink. Couldn't they have just designed something with a flip-top lid?

BARISTA: Mashing buttons like a champ.
ME: I don't care. I worked a register. It takes concentration. I'm waiting. I know to the penny how much it costs.

BARISTA: "$4.40"
ME: Tries real darn hard not to sigh at yet another failure of the barista training program. Let me elucidate.

Starbucks wants people to buy these $15 recyclable tumblers, one because they're $15 and two because every time I use it, I save them a throw-away plastic cup that doesn't go into a landfill.

The company can't track green initiatives unless the baristas remember to ring the "personal cup" discount - and encourage them to be MORE green. Also, I'm subtly encouraged to return to Starbucks for this inconsequential 11-cent discount. I swear it is a conspiracy to ignore the green movement - "see, no one uses them."

ME: I withhold my card, because without payment, no things are possible. AND I POLITELY SAY - "Can I have the personal cup discount please?"

Please allow me to enumerate the excuses I have heard.

BARISTA #1: "Oh. It's my first day back at work."
BARISTA #2: "Yeah. You did give me that cup."
BARISTA #3: "Oh, I knew I was forgetting something. You had to remind me last time too, didn't you?" Thank you, Old Lady Barista, for remembering me, and the now 22 cents you have tried to swindle me out of.

You want more? I got more.
BARISTA #4: "Oh. Was that your cup?"
BARISTA #5: Nothing. Just a blank stare. And then "Oh. Yeah. That's right."
BARISTA #6: "I'm so sorry, I just went right past it."
BARISTA #7: "We don't see a lot of those."
BARISTA #8: "I can't find the button."

ME: "That's OK." Wait patiently as they mash one more button. Amy Good Barista. Good Barista Amy.


BARISTA: "$4.29"
ME: Hands over the Starbucks Gold card and gets the total price under $4. People like me are the reason they're doing away with Starbucks Gold.

I have been to ALL of these Starbucks stores multiple times before. They know my drink order at #2 and #3 - but they regularly try to nudge me out of 11 cents.

I honestly get so happy now when the baristas at my "super-regular" Starbucks get things right without me having to *tell* them, that I go ahead and tell them "you're the only ones who remember." There's a reason they're the best Starbucks in two counties.

*sigh* OK. My rant is over. Thank you. Baristas, feel free to comment. Maybe the button is impossible to find.

Like the crazy PRICE OVERRIDE for vegetables when I worked the register at Wal-Mart. That was a NIGHTMARE of epic proportions. EPIC. Trying to make the scale talk to the register was like trying to get Anglophiles and Francophones to pick a place to eat.

Come light your joints at Starbucks

Urban Starbucks are pretty much an ecosystem unto themselves, what with the hipsters, homeless people and high-powered caffeine addicts jostling for a spot in front of the register. Elbows are thrown. Laptops are stolen. Comfy chairs are fought and won a thousand times in the space of a single day - the lobby being carved up like a partitioned Poland falling under the knives of Eastern Europe.

Anywho.

Urban Starbucks are always good for some sights - like the tattooed hipsters updating their Facebook pages, the random drug addicts staggering around in too-little clothes and ragged hems and the occasional crazy-person-that-turns-out-to-be-a-Bluetooth-freak jabbering into the air. I hate those - BECAUSE YOU CAN NEVER TELL ANYMORE. Especially with this whole "boho chic" thing that's going on in fashion. I like my homeless people dirty and smelly and talking to themselves. When the people who can afford cell phones start doing that too, we need to talk.

The intersection of tattooed hipster and slightly deviant behavior is always fun. I witnessed this up close over the weekend.

I was in what's got to pass for an "urban" Starbucks around here - the only one in what could conceivably be called a "downtown" that isn't a tack-o-rama tourist trap district. There's a bit of everything - including some dude who likes to stand in the middle of the street. I hate to tell him, but he's about 120 pounds, soaking wet. He wouldn't win in a fight with a Tata Nano, probably not even a Radio Flyer.

It is the tattooed hipster that has my attention. He's sitting at a table outside and has the laptop out - and on Facebook - of course. Only, he keeps leaving the table to walk around the corner. I can't quite see what's going on - but dude - seriously? It might not be anything but a banged-up old Dell, but someone could still pawn that puppy for a fix.

And we're not talking "run to the condiment bar for a napkin" - we're talking five, ten minutes at a crack. Something is up. I've got time. I'm going to wait him out. Especially because he keeps giving me *looks.* Um. OK. You're cute but the receding hairline is definitely a mark against you. The PC is another. The stupidity is strike three - you're out.

Finally, he must have decided that I was either OK or else not a Narc, because he came inside and began his project, which was obviously the subject of all the hard work earlier - the one which involved all the running around on the corner.

He's rolling something. Now, I really, really want to believe that it was tobacco. He finishes quickly, furtively, and *looks* at me. I *look* at him and he *looks* around the corner of the shop for the barista. He wipes a few stray stems off the table and hops back outside.

Where his computer has been sitting this whole time. *sigh*

Omar from "The Wire" would have eaten this child for lunch. With a side of shotgun shells and Honey Nut Cheerios.

Starbucks, where the food is free and the stupid costs extra

As most denizens of the Green Apron Palace (hey, that's pretty catchy, if too many syllables) knows, baristas start "marking out" the old sandwiches, pastries and cookies around a half-hour before closing time. Play nice with the baristas, and you might score some day-old pastry.

I once made off with a two sacks full of sandwiches and pastries, probably about $60 worth total, just because I was in the right place at the right time. The shift supervisor told me that the people from the local homeless shelter just never came by, so they wound up just throwing the food away. Better to at least give it to the customers, who will be eating it, than letting it rot in a landfill. Plus, I recycled the plastic packaging.

Anywhoodle.

I'm sitting there, drinking my third coffee of the night when this hood rat rolls in about 9:30 p.m. Please note that this particular Starbucks doesn't technically close until 11 p.m., although the place is as dead as Linsay Lohan's career and the baristas are in full cleaning mode. And what is this about LiLo doing a "tastefully raunchy" spread for MUSE magazine? NSFW WARNING!

HoodRat is in full white-boy wannabe "gangsta" mode. He probably never saw the inside of a rap CD cover, much less the inside of a crack house. The closest he ever got to Detroit was watching Eminem's "8 Mile" on DVD; he probably listens to Taylor Swift in the bedroom and croons into his hairbrush. His pants are too low and I'm not positive that those weren't little hearts on his boxers.

"Yo man, do ya'll still be giving out the free food after dark?" I don't know what language he thought he was speaking, but it only bore a passing acquaintance to English. Note that "after dark" is around 6 p.m. local time here what with the stupidity of the time change.

Speak CO-REK-LEE (I have to break it down in case you can't handle words of three syllables) people. You wonder why people treat you like you're ignorant? It is because you *sound* ignorant. 

The barista, who is a skinny white boy with too-long hair that is starting to do that weird sixties flip at the ends, when everyone just abandoned scissors in favor of free love and mop-tops. Still cute, mind you, but he's starting to look like a Monkee. Which really doesn't go with the earrings he's wearing. Sorry. Lost my train of thought. Think Davy Jones with big silver barbells in his ears. Yeah. I know. Odd combination. It is 2009. Anything goes.

Davy Jones Barista nails the HoodRat with a stare that would drop a rampaging bull elephant at a thousand pace and goes, in this haughty tone of voice that would do a British heiress proud, "We really don't do that any more." If only he had said it in an English accent, I might have been smitten by Britain on the spot. It was more a flat Midwestern thing. Plus, he's probably too young for me. Sixteen with get you twenty, you know.

As he's doing this, Davy Jones Barista is stacking up sandwiches by the register to mark them out. He calmly continues this task, then moves on to the pastry. He has zero intention of offering the HoodRat free anything, not even a sample of Starbucks Via, which they apparently can't even give away. *snark*




Face-to-face with the failure of his brilliant plan to score a free sandwich, the HoodRat didn't know what to do. The brain cells (all two of them) were smoking (weed, that is).

I wanted to laugh. I really did. This is why the gene pool needs a good chlorine bleach every week or so. The stupidity needs to be scrubbed out before it breeds.

HoodRat flares, like he's going to make an issue out of it, and I'm thinking, well, this could be a first. I'm going to witness a throwdown over a piece of crumb cake and a couple of those soggy egg salad sandwiches. Which, if I was the barista, I'd have given him - because NO ONE buys them. NO ONE. Every single Starbucks in town has those awful faux-egg concoctions left over at closing.



HoodRat winds up leaving. Apparently egg salad isn't worth it. Truthfully, it isn't.

Trust me on this one, I know. I've been there at closing time at the four busiest stores in the county - and every single one of them is marking out egg salad sandwiches every night. It must be made out of people.

If you're happy and you're toothless, go to Starbucks!

I could go on and on with one of my usual rants about old people, hipsters and the soul-crushing stupidity of some of the soul-less corporate yuppie ding-dongs that peruse the pastry case at Starbucks. I won't. I'll constrain myself to just the toothless set.

I'm waiting, *patiently* behind a toothless old codger in a windbreaker with socks up to his knees and pants up to his nipples. He is trying to order a coffee, JUST A PLAIN COFFEE, which he screams, because he's half deaf. I have an ear infection at the moment and I could have heard him down the block, over traffic, with my headphones on, blaring Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance." Just so everyone knows, I could really use a bad romance right about now.

The concept of tall, grande and venti is lost on this old man. I really don't understand why they come into Starbucks if they don't already understand the sizes. Is it such a foreign concept? I will continue to whinge upon that until someone beats the concept of learning about stores before you walk up to the register and start blabbering into the idiot customers of America.

The barista, who happens to be Little Apron Aaron, asks him "room for cream," which I really, really wish every barista would do, because I get so cranky seeing people pour perfectly good coffee down the trash simply because they do not have the ability to verbalize their needs. "Room for cream" results in another round of shouting, because Mr. Windbreaker Socks de Nipples from Michigan won't spring for a hearing aid.

Then, we come to the great pastry case debate of 2009.

Mr. Windbreaker Socks de Nipples wants a pastry. I'm going to type everything he said in ALL CAPS, because he was screaming. "WHAT ARE THEM THINGS? SCONES?"

Little Apron Aaron winces, then goes "We've got cake, cookies, donuts and scones. Can you point?" "THEM THINGS RIGHT THERE, WITH THE BLUE BERRY THINGS." Yes, there was a definite space between blue and berry.

"OK. One blueberry scone. Anything else?" "NO THAT'S ALL!" He pays and Little Apron Aaron goes to get the pastry. "Do you want it on a plate or to go? "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" "Are you going to eat it here?" "NO. DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M GOING TO EAT IT HERE? JUST PUT IN A SACK!"

Little Apron Aaron moves to get a scone. "NOT THAT ONE. I DON'T WANT THAT ONE. I WANT THE ONE IN THE FRONT." I can't hear the sigh, but I know it is there. He moves the tongs and there's another screech, one that would singe metal and curl the hair of strongmen half a mile away. "NO, WAIT, I DON'T WANT THAT ONE. GIVE ME THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE. IT HAS BIGGER BLUEBERRIES."

Because that's what life is all about. Bigger blueberries. There's a joke there, I just won't make it.

Coffee Boy wants sixteen venti Starbucks drinks to go, please!

I'm trying to have coffee with a friend at a tiny Starbucks Wednesday morning - why they made this one so small is beyond me (I've only ever been in one "real," non-airport, non-Target Starbucks that was smaller) - and the line of customers suddenly explodes around 10 a.m.
Which, if you think about it - is bizarre.

I am a habitué - I know the rhythms of most of the latte-slinging establishments in this city like the back of my hand. For the record, you really, really, REALLY do not want to hit a Starbucks at 15 minutes before the hour on weekdays prior to 9 a.m. Let the caffeine-deprived office drones get behind their computers first, then get a latte. M'kay?

So. Here it is 10 a.m. - and suddenly the lobby is slammed with people. Like an invasion of the Latte-Snatchers. My drama detectors go off.

I look up and there's and office boy - I don't know what else to call him - ohh, Coffee Boy - he had on a starched white button down, black pants with creases in them so sharp you could get a paper cut and black shoes, plus an ugly patterned tie.  Why was he getting coffee? He didn't win the WASP genetic lottery and had a face like someone smacked him with frying pan. The pretty boys were probably canoodling someone in the supply closet and avoiding the unpleasant duties.

There was also the anal-retentive personality, which soon became ABUNDANTLY clear.

Coffee Boy had come to the Starbucks armed with a list of orders from his office.

We're not talking some "large latte, chai tea, mocha" scribbled on a Post-It. OH. NO. HOW BADLY WRONG YOU ARE.

HE HAD A PRINT OUT. WITH TABLES ON IT.

Mathematical precision required to run the Starbucks takeout order.

And let me tell you folks. What a drink order this was. There was a REASON the Starbucks lobby was backed up like the toilet at a fat camp.

The harried barista starts handing out cups of various shapes, and Coffee Boy pulls out FOUR - FOUR - FOUR! - of those cardboard takeout trays and slaps them down on the handoff bar.

He whips out his little list and starts checking things off.

But before he put the puts the cups into the takeout tray, he quizzes the baristas AGAIN on "did you make this exactly like they said?" I can see that he is reading off of a list of complicated instructions.

I almost feel sad for this child, because it is VERY OBVIOUS that some office full of high-powered, evil, corporate alligators sent this defenseless little toadfrog out into the world with a coffee list that read like "Venti, iced caramel macchiatto, with extra caramel, add caramel and whipped cream" or "Quad venti raspberry white chocolate mocha, add two pumps vanilla and whipped cream and extra spinkles, go light on the ice" or "Tall, six-pump, four-Splenda, half-caff, vanilla latte, with room for cream and sugar."

The list could go on and on. And if he screwed it up, he'd probably have to file a ream of blank paper in the basement according to the the light/dark of the watermark or something. Or collate tree leaves.

FOUR takeout trays of this madness. FOUR. That is sixteen drinks - sixteen individually made drinks. The Caffeine Freaks in line behind him were getting restless as he contemplated stacking up all four trays at once and heading out the door.

I COULD SEE THE DISASTER COMING AND WAS PRAYING - PLEASE KALI, LET THIS THE WISDOM OF PEACE DESCEND UP ON THIS YOUNG FOOL! I bet he never thought that business degree would end up with him fetching coffee! He could have majored in something easy in the College of Liberal Arts and hung out with the drama majors and the hippie chicks and had fun in college!


Thankfully, it did.

He decided that discretion was the better part of valor, asked the barista (who'd probably had enough of him) - and did NOT want to remake all that mess - to watch the coffee. Coffee Boy made multiple trips out to his car (well, two) with the takeout.

I really, really, really hope that he drove carefully and slowly on the way back to whatever office building he worked at.

I wonder how he got all that coffee indoors?

If a Starbucks barista falls in the forest, does anyone hear it?

Sometimes the drama is the customers. Sometimes it the baristas. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, it is the really, really, really off-kilter or having-a-bad-day baristas. And I'm just too tired to fight them. I swear. There is a reality show WAITING to be made "Behind the Green Apron" - or maybe "The Frappuccino Follies;" wait, that sounds like an ice-skating show.

Anyway.

I just wanted a quick coffee before I went to see "Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire" - yes, that IS the movie's full title, re-DONK-ulous, isn't it? But it is stunningly good. The kid is good, but Mo'Nique is absolutely brilliant as a crack addict mother. Her last scene is worth an Oscar.

Although I think she's probably poisoned that well, because there's been a lot of reporting about how she's demanded money to show up to promote the movie. Girlfriend. It is an Oscar. You show up in a garbage bag and a nappy weave if you have a chance to win, m'kay? And don't do the Eddie Murphy thing and release "Norbit" the same time people are voting for you for an Oscar for "Dreamgirls." He'll never get near another decent movie again. 

Back to me.

I. Just. Wanted. A. Coffee.

It was not to be. It never is. I really don't know why. Maybe it is me. Maybe it is Starbucks.

Anywhoodle.

I go in and *stand* at the register. Not at the pastry case. Not at the handoff bar. Not at the merchandise. Not by the wall. Other than some bored soccer moms yammering on about preschool or Twilight dildos (yes, there is such a thing, so help me Shiva) or something, I was the only customer in the place.

I was apparently not worth of notice.

One barista is cleaning. One is doing something with the coffeemakers and pastries and a cardboard box and the other is leaning out the drive-thru window staring at what could possibly be a dead bird or maybe a Rorschach test of his admittedly limited intelligence.

PLEASE note that none of them were actively engaged in dealing with any customers, either in the store or at the drive thru.

I wait.

Finally, Cardboard Box, who is apparently the manager, asks Rorschach "Do you need something else to do?" Because he DID LOOK BORED!

And Rorschach gave him what had to have been the best simultaneous pissed-off and scornful looks ever managed.And he followed it up with a drawling "Nooooooooooooo." Complete with sour face and puffy bottom lip. Just like a recalcitrant child.

Then they finally notice me.

Rorschach takes my order and I hand him my new recyclable Venti tumbler. Which - if you have one of those - they won't hold the lids for you.

Rorschach removes the lid for me - and PROMPTLY DROPS THE TUMBLER, THE LID AND THE STRAW ON THE FLOOR.

I swear. Must have been a real good toke he'd been hitting in the car out in the parking lot.

At least he had the grace to go wash out my tumbler, even if he forgot to take off my $.10 personal glassware discount. I counted the clean mug a win.

Stoner baristas FTW!