I think the Starbucks near my office is cursed. And I say the Starbucks, because if it's not the place then it's just got to be me personally, because every time I go there (and it's not often anymore) something strange happens. I have, yes, out of my current financial problems and need for the extra ten minutes of sleep in the morning rendering it impossible to make it from the subway to the Starbucks and then to my office on time, stopped frequenting my old haunt. I'm now friends with Ralph, the guy at the coffee stand on the sidewalk right outside of my office where I can, every morning, have my coffee ready for me for just one dollar. He asks me about my weekends and tells me to have a good day and his coffee is hot, which is about as picky as I can be these days when it comes to getting anything in this city I can get for a buck.
An entire two weeks ago when I went to Starbucks in a free ten minutes I had during the day on Friday, my grande non-fat latte setting me back a whopping $4.25 which is like, enough to almost buy me dinner for an entire week (read: a box of cereal). They forgot my order and after re-ordering it on the fly I got a half full cup of whole milk that was barely steaming (whatever happened to, careful: the beverage you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot?) and suddenly my world was falling apart. Holding the white and green cup with The Way I See It # 71 on the side by the inarticulate man-hating Maureen Dowd, I realized that maybe our relationship (Starbucks and mine) is hitting a rough patch. Perhaps it’s time to sever the cord of this love/hate (usually mostly love) union and look for someone who treats me with more respect and understands my feelings and can really appreciate the kind of girl I am.
This morning (back again, some of us never learn) I was harassed by the man standing in front of me in line. He wouldn’t stop asking me if I had a quarter. No, I said (which was true) I don’t, but he just wouldn’t let it go. He asked about five other people, all of whom didn’t even bother to acknowledge his existence (that’s New York for you). The man (Irwin) then proceeded to ask me about my weekend plans, what I was going to get, if I had ever tried the bagels, and if I was going to be late for work. Yes, I wanted to say, but he didn’t even let me respond. He apparently, loves their muffins and isn’t, “God damn it,” going to get a paycheck this week. Now I understood the desperation over the twenty-five cents.
The whole scene was just so awkward for me that it was all I could do from turning around and running away, my only typical response to intensely awkward situations - flee. When Irwin was only one person away from the head of the line, the British guy behind me jokingly asked me if I had a dime. I started to laugh and then Irwin shot us both a hateful look and asked pointedly: “Are you laughing at me?”
Well, I guess sometimes life (and Starbucks) is like #71 says: the minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
