Jan 5, 2007

Merry Muther$%^$#@ Christmas

Or, "Why Baby Jesus Would Be Proud Of Me For Not Shearing One Of His Flock The Day After His Birthday".

Okay, so for the sake of consistency all my Real Urban Encounters tend to go down in one of two places. A. Starbucks. B. Leaving Starbucks. Does my rash of ongoing conflict-encounters always occur outside a caffeine filling-station because on top of being a self-obsessed, angry, paranoid country we're totally wired to the gills on Evil Bean or is it just a coincidence? Probably a coincidence.

So I'm with my 2.5 yr old daughter at 'Bucks in Greenwich Ct., where the streets are paved with gold and the fine citizens are taken by Rolls Royce to get their daily Frappucinos. Day after baby-Jesus' birthday, so you'd think amidst all the post-birthday of the Savior merriment there'd be a little extra love and light to go around. Think again.

I wait for fifteen minutes in a line that snakes almost out the door. Place is jammed. Fortunately, Ella and I find a table. But we're short one chair. Next to us a group of three people gets up to leave, so I snag one of theirs. Ella and I are chilling nicely, talking about the socio-economic benefits of fair-trade coffee versus commercially exploitive practices of corporate-backed businesses like oh, Starbucks when suddenly this woman walks over, gets in my face and goes "Uh, excuse me sir that's my chair!".

Now first of all, when did I become a sir? So I'm dashingly salt 'n pepper haired. Okay, maybe mostly salt. Okay, maybe at a young age Mother Nature just unscrewed the top to the fcuking shaker and coated my head in salt, are you happy now? But still, I'm cool, I think. Its not like I walk around in a cardigan with leather elbow patches smoking a pipe. I listen to Black Eyed Peas for god's sake! None of my clothes have any elbow patches, I swear.

So already I'm insulted. But I figure, be the bigger person. Feel her pain. Now she's like, right in my face. I can feel the hot foam from her $12.95 triple tax-bracket, husband's seven figure income, annual bonus that equals the Gross Domestic Product of a developing nation beginning to scald the side of my face. Plus she called me sir, so in addition to feeling socially claustrophobic by her financially liberated lifestyle, I just plain hate her.

"That's my chair. You took it from that table, my things are there". She articulates this through clenched teeth and a thin bitter smile that makes me think somewhere in her basement illegal Dominicans are chained to an ironing board, forced to perform menial domestic tasks. I make a mental note to free them after I kill her and start a revolution to bring only fair trade coffee to America.

Sure enough, somewhere between the time the original occupants left the table and I sucked down enough coffee to realize I already couldn't afford my daughter’s college tuition someday, this woman had apparently walked out of line, and put her purse on one of the chairs. Which would explain her purse sitting on one of the chairs. The purse had more top grain leather and silver on it than a rodeo saddle. The cost of it would've covered a semester of room and board at Brown.

"I saved it. That's how it works". Now I get it. In my pre-first-sip-of-caffeine lull, maybe I remember seeing this woman, who by the way was like, eight people back in line walk over and put her purse down on the chair. I may have seen that. If you don't have it on video however, talk to my lawyer.

Very quickly, I throw together a tall, double-tolerance, half self-righteous, half-apologetic, no back-down latte. With a shot of faux understanding. Extra hot. "We were in front of you. In line. Sorry...". She cranks the knobs on her hate-machine, and spews up a triple-grande pissed-off, I-will-crush-your-revolution-and-you-will-join-your-friends-in-my-basement-and-iron-my-shirts cappuccino.

It’s on. I notice her eight-year old. He's flatlining on a mobile PS2 and could care less. Still, I know we can take them if it goes down. Not only does Ella possess the strength of an angry Chimpanzee, but she's already managed to scratch her face with her grissini, so I know once she nibbles away the rest of the yogurt coating it'll basically be a non-registered lethal breadstick.

The Mexican standoff ensues, with me playing the part of an actual Hispanic. Standing. Maybe she had to get back to her McMansion and hose down the workers before lunch, but for whatever reason she storms off and takes a table by the window. I don't know. But I give myself credit for not saying another word to her. Even though she shot me a couple of angry stares between sips of her battery-acid.

And for dessert? She actually goes over to the cashier, has a fit then stomps back over to announce to me victoriously, "Uh yeah--I checked with them. That is how it works. You can save your place. Its not who's ahead of who". She walks off and I so want to yell after her, "Its whom...", but I think of the workers, my incarcerated Latin brothers and sisters and bite my lip for fear she'll make them use heated rocks instead of Rowenta irons if I push her any further.

Ella by now had indeed eaten off the outer yogurt coating to reveal the world's hardest bread-stick like substance underneath. Maybe grissini is Italian for "Titanium". And I knew she was ready, pigtails and all to get her daddy's back. Fortunately, the full effects of the sugar-laden yogurt had set in and her eyes lids were beginning to flutter an SOS for naptime.

So I leave you with this. How exactly does that work, the whole "save a chair from in line, even though technically I was an actual paying customer having already purchased my products while she was only a potential customer having not made a purchase and for all I know she could've gotten bored or been paged the workers were out of spray starch and left without having ever made a purchase, in which case she was basically only intending to be a customer which is really, no different from anyone in the entire town of Greenwich (hmmm, Greenwich--Grinch?) walking around at any given point thinking hmmm, Starbucks in which case the next time someone goes to sit down and enjoy their brew you could say to them, excuse me, that seat's taken. At some point. Maybe. By someone who may or may not actually be having a coffee here. Sometime.", Yeah how does that work?

And you may want to consider carrying around an extra grissini, you know tucked away in your purse or something. Hey, you never know.