Starbucks Coffee - now with more Crack - Part Two
So, in today’s Part Two installment of Starbucks Coffee – now with Crack (part one), we catch up with our hero, late to work again, hung over from too much caffeine yesterday and subsequently being up all night, only to stop at the same Starbucks, with the famed orange mug in hand.
I walk in today, there’s no sign of Señora Psychopath. This gives me mixed feelings, because, from the safety of the outside counter, it was fun to watch her caffeine-induced tick as she talked to my coffee mug yesterday, but on the other hand, I’m a little glad that I don’t have to waste any of my two hour’s sleep on figuring out if she’d actually harm me.
“House coffee with room, please.” I try not to sound like I just rolled out of bed.
While the barista takes the cup and turns around to fill it with heaven’s nectar, from nowhere appears the strangely composed version of the young woman from yesterday. If I hadn’t just been peering into it, I would have thought she crawled out of the pastry case. Remember “The Sidler” episode of Seinfeld? There you go.
“Good morning!” in her normal chipper voice. “Morning” is my mumbled reply. It is, after all, only the sixth word I’d spoken today. She went about the regular coffee shop duties, with no indication that she’d completely freaked us all out yesterday. Confounded, I’m thinking once she sees the shiny coffee mug it’s all over, so when her coworker turns around and sets the mug on the counter I bristle with anticipation.
Guys know this feeling, as it’s the same feeling we had as kids when we finally managed to get the spider into the jar and drop in a grasshopper. “This is gonna be so cool…” is all that runs through our minds.
Similar to that continual childhood disappointment, nothing happened. No glazed over eyes, no holding the mug aloft or showing to customers in the drive thru. Nothing. Okay, I decide maybe she didn’t see it – so I spin it slowly as I put the lid on it, trying to reflect the track lighting in the place.
It catches her eye.
She inhales to say speak, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Watch out world, here it comes! Welcome to Crazyville!
“Oh, that’s a cool mug.”
Using her inside voice, her pupils didn’t dilate, no cup held aloft. She couldn’t be any more calm. The only even remotely weird thing is that the way she said it suggested that it was the first time she’d ever seen it.
But, I guess, on some levels, it probably was.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Haha…
You need to take a picture of this chick…I want to know what crazy looks like!…
August 15th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Yes, because taking a picture of someone who may or may not be certifiable is guaranteed not to backfire.
Seriously, she could work in any coffee shop in any city, she’s just that person. Maybe yours in next…
August 18th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Haha…There is a counter between right?…That will buy you at least 5 valuble running away seconds….
I’ve never been in a coffee shop…I don’t drink the stuff…
August 20th, 2007 at 6:00 am
Ok, it’s drugs for deffo either she takes drugs to control some kind of mental ailment, like schitzophrenia or possibly something as straightforward as epilepsy, and got the dose wrong OR she had been tripping off her tits the day before and now everything is back to normal.
You know what I’d do. I’d ask her. Except that she’d deny it, the rest of the staff would deny it and I’d end up thinking I was the crazy one. Nope, better still, ask one of the other members of staff what gives…
Go on…
Cheers
BC
August 20th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Yes, see? It’s a sensitive subject, albeit one that I will write about and post for the world to see. Much easier than asking her coworkers outright. Plus, if it was something outside the realm of her control, I would feel badly about the internet ridicule.
I hadn’t thought about an issue with a prescription drug she may have been taking. With all the caffeine those folks ingest just from being there, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that there could have been some sort of reaction.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Any strangeness with her since? I was really waiting for you to tell us their are twins at the coffee shop.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Nope. To be honest, I’ve started hitting the coffee shop closer to my home on the way in. That way, I get the caffeine into my system when I could actually use it, i.e., on the road, and I also avoid that awkward “I think I saw you when you were tripping” silence.
Twins is an idea I hadn’t thought of, although it makes me wonder: is crazy hereditary?
September 4th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
I have a sis-in-law that is a twin and I think I can answer yes to the hereditary thing.