While I was down in Southern California recently, I had the pleasure of sitting in Starbucks for much longer than I ever wanted to (due to a communications… error). While waiting for the internet I spent some time people watching. I wasn’t at a terribly busy Starbucks, but enough to keep me entertained with the people going by.
The first thing I have to say, I don’t care who you are… the towel dresses don’t look good. They look stupid, please… please stop wearing them.
The next thing I noticed, it really does seem like the Starbucks employee’s are mainlining caffeine. I realize they are hired to be cheerful and perky and all that jazz, but they just seem to be over the top constantly.
I really find it depressing how much people don’t seem to care and are totally in their own little world. Earlier in the morning, I watched one lady pushing her shopping cart along the sidewalk of the parking lot, off the ledge, and directly into some guys bumper. She then tries to backup the cart to no avail then proceed to push it forward and back in spot, grinding along the side of the vehicle. She didn’t have enough strength in one hand to get the cart unstuck from the vehicle at first. Eventually she got away and wandered off. She didn’t say anything to the guy who was sitting inside of his vehicle, THE ENTIRE TIME. Why was she trying to one hand a cart that she obviously couldn’t manage? Oh, she was on the phone. She couldn’t be bothered to put the call on hold for the 15 seconds it would have taken to use her other hand to get it unstuck. Luckily for the guy, there was no damage to his car since she had just been mucking about the bumper, but even if there was, I wonder what he would have done. The lady had sauntered off with her cart like she didn’t have a care in the world. It was obvious she hadn’t even checked to see if she did any damage.
The one cool thing down here is that the local cops drive some nice vehicles. Specifically, the motorcycle cops are riding new BMW R1200RTP’s, which I’ve seen around more than a few times. Of course that coolness has to be offset by a disproportionately high number of crotch rockets (sport bikes) I’ve seen running around. I know it gets warm here, but crotch rocket riders seem to be worse about wearing gear than anyone else. Hell, I’m not perfect about wearing my gear either, but at least I’m not riding around in shorts and flip flops.
My closing notes about hanging out in Starbucks for a really long time: their standard seats (not the few cushy ones) get very uncomfortable after a while. They aren’t exactly conducive to sitting for long durations, of course they really don’t want you to. Now if only they had a net connection better than 1.5 meg, I could be out of here all that much sooner.