The New Walmart

There is a Starbucks on campus that I go to everyday. The only problem is, it isn't a real Starbucks. It's a campus version. They don't have real baristas, only a snotty nosed little manager that needs to attend the Kmart Customer Service training that I went to in high school. She's got the worst attitude. I walk out of there pissed off nearly every day for several reasons: 1- you can't depend on the drink tasting the same way each day. 2- the unintentional rudeness of the employees. Who has a conversation with someone while they're supposed to be taking my GD order? The thing is... I don't think they understand that they're being rude. 3-my flipflops sound different on each foot and no matter how hard I try, I cannot get my feet to flop with the same urgent slap on each foot. My left foot keeps everything in line with a rigid slap on the marble flooring where as my right foot drags. The tile in the library where the faux Starbucks lies only exacerbates the loudness of the left foot verses the laziness of the right. These things haunt me, and yet I continue to patronize the damn place. Scott doesn't approve of Starbucks any more. He thinks they're the new Walmart, but I don't believe it. Or maybe I don't want to believe it.

This is serious because I openly berate people about going to Walmart. I really don't want to be committing any similar offense after what I put others through. Nothing makes me madder than three things- Walmart, Bush, and kids making fun of retarded people. Why do people still think it's funny to act retarded? It's not. It's so ridiculously sophomoric and stupid. I don't get the humor and it isn't because of Terry. It's because I know what is actually funny and what it not. Back to the issue, though--- The people that work at Starbucks don't look like the people at Walmart. That's one difference. Their cute and hip and work there part-time while going to college. Walmart employees are rundown, weathered and working full-time with shitty to non-existent health insurance to pay the bills and support their families. Starbucks tries to be pretty inside and smells like coffee and baked goods. Walmart looks like a warehouse and smells like burnt ketchup, hotdogs and disinfectant. They can't be the same! I won't believe it, Scott! Why would he do this to me? He knows how much I need them! The thing is, I try to buy my coffee locally, but I don't drive in the morning and the coffee shop is three blocks the other way! I barely get to work on time as it is! Starbucks is the only answer until I get my nice coffee maker. We're going to have to have a family meeting. I don't want to feel like I'm feeding into the machine. Maybe Mama D. will buy it for me.

Another issue I'm dealing with- Pirates of the Caribbean. I've never seen it. I'm glad I've never seen it, but secretly, I want to. I've never seen Titanic and I decided that I wouldn't. I just won't because it makes me feel like I have choices in life. Just because everyone else is doing something (like seeing a movie) doesn't mean I have to. So, ridiculous as it is, I find pleasure in the fact that I have not seen Titanic. And the same goes with Pirates. I can scoff at those (sorry AC- not like you read this...) who have extolled this as a masterpiece and say to myself, "I do not need the conventions of modern American folk. I do not need Johnny Depp." I'm not completely blaming this on my husband, but he did put it in our netflix queue. And so now, it's actually in the mail on it's way to my doorstep to be delivered TODAY. I still haven't decided whether or not I'm going to watch it. My father was like this. He would take very small issues and principles and create a life code by them. I guess I learned it from him.

Hawkins needs a suit to wear to Molly's wedding. I want him in a seersucker. Scott needs a new tie. A hip tie WITHOUT a tie tack, buddy. Seriously, Scott insists on wearing a tie tack as big as his tie. His defense? "I don't want my tie in my spaghetti..." He actually tacks it to his shirt! I've never seen this phenomenon before, but whoever started it should be fired from whatever it is that they do. Anyway, we're going to be one smokin' hot family come Friday night. My new bangs have inspired me to have a "messy updo" for the wedding. That's what I'm going to tell the hairstylist. Let's just hope I don't walk out of their looking like Beetlejuice or Joyce Carol Oates.

I saw my friend Trauman today for the first time in a long while. He came by my office. It's so strange how life changes. When I first moved here, he was one of the first friends I made and we saw each other often. Now, the same esteem is there, but there's just no friggin' time. Our lives are so different. It's strange, though, because we're both on campus every day- me for school and work and him for school and work. He's getting his PhD in Rhetoric and is this fancy poet/philospher now. I guess that's what love and husbands and babies and dogs and PhD's will do to a friendship.


Speaking of dogs, I miss The Dude. He'll be at the Bluegrass BBQ on Saturday for Molly's wedding. It should be a good time, but I'll probably be comatose by Sunday.