Do not play Words With Friends at the register

OK. I'm calling a moratorium on this whole "Words With Friends" thing. It is infecting the Starbucks and slowing down my line. And I NEED SOME CAFFEINE AT 9 A.M. ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING. So please, get off your phone, stop trying to find a three-letter word, and order a damn mocha.


I don't really have anything against Words With Friends - but please get off your damn phone at the register. You're a human being. Act like one with the people who are making your drink. I wish place would just refuse to serve phone-bots.

Wednesday was just a disaster.

Of epic proportions.

It was cold, wet, slopping rain and the customers were talking to themselves.

So were the baristas, but that's another matter entirely.

There are only three baristas on duty, I'm in a line that goes back to the condiment station and the thing is moving slower than a pig through a boa constrictor when I finally get to within sight of the register.

One barista taking orders, another on the bar and the third one trying to battle the pastry case, heat up sandwiches and help doing whatever because there was a woman LITERALLY screaming for half-and-half.

The poor guy at the register is trying to coax an order out of some hippie chick with yoga pants, a $400 bag, $200 sunglasses (god only knows why - no one here has seen the sun since June) and a cell phone that is on Words With Friends.

She's poking around on the screen and mumbling "whomp-whomp-whocha-who-whocha-chip." Which could have been anything.

Because you KNOW HOW LOUD Starbucks gets at 9 a.m. on a weekday. Commuters. Business types. Single people on laptops at every table - EVEN THE FOURTOPS. Old men camping out in the comfy chairs doing the crossword and scratching themselves. GOD HELP US ALL AND SAVE THE HUMANITY.

He asks her to repeat that.

She starts moving tiles around on the screen.

I feel the draft from the door and look back. Five more people in line. She doesn't even look up and mumbles the SAME THING.

I as guilty as the next person of fiddling on my phone at all hours of the day or night, but I get off it when it is time to order. I. WANT. MY. COFFEE.

"Can you repeat that? It is loud in here."

"whomp-whomp-whocha."

I want to throw her phone into the nearest cup of coffee.

I want to throw her into the path of the nearest car.

Finally, the mild-mannered man behind the register says in a clear voice "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

To which Scrabulous looks up (she might have gotten a double word score on a four-letter word), notices the line behind her for the first time and goes "A white mocha, no whip."

THANK YOU, AND CAN I GET AN AMEN?