Sometimes, we all need to dance at Starbucks

JUST FYI: This is not a snark post --- Well, there's me, two baristas and a bored (I almost wrote "board") girl poking buttons on her cell phone in the corner. The place is about as happening as the Charlie Sheen Moral Turpitude Society.

Which means Not. At. All.

The baristas have plugged in an iPod and are blasting out Vampire Weekend. I quite confess I like it. I might have actually discovered something new to add to my musical library there. It makes me feel like getting up and dancing.

I did dance as I came in - I swayed to the sounds. I didn't care that anyone saw me. I've know both baristas on duty for a long time - and they really don't mind if I hang out or talk to them. So I danced.

I was thinking of the whole "third place" concept that Starbucks used to (still does?) espouse as I pulled into the parking lot of what I think of as "my Starbucks" last night.

Starbucks feels like an extension of my home to me - one that serves delicious iced venti marble mocha macchiattos. Stores with baristas that I frequent know me as a regular (even the ones that don't know I blog about them and their customers) and we chat. I love them, they love me, I get coffee. No one uses protection. Nine months later, a baby mocha is born.

But anyway. I feel at home inside a Starbucks. I feel protected - especially this one.

Most night, I have the place almost entirely to myself from 8-10 p.m., except for the baristas. I observe the random crazies that walk in, plus the other later-night regulars (newspaper guy, the cops, the book group with the one ambiguously gay grandson). They've all made appearances from time to time.

But what I love the most is the atmosphere. I get the chance to decompress after a day of ... whatever.

Starbucks makes me happy. It isn't just the coffee - the shop itself - the people, the place, the chairs and the tables has a personality.

This is why I rail when I see things like Starbucks VIA, or the removal of the word "coffee" from the receipts or the marked decline in pastry quality. Each of these pushes Starbucks a little bit farther away from its origins - successful origins - as a "third place." Each of these diminishes my Starbucks experience a little more each time, because they make the place more and more like a McDonald's that happens to serve coffee - and not somewhere I feel like dancing.

Please don't make me feel like I have to stop dancing. We all need the freedom to dance - and I'm so glad that Starbucks provides that for me.