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TALL SOY CHAI
by Lynn Dickinson

Thank God for Starbucks!  I feel like I’m in the presence of genius every time I sit down in this place.  I mean it too.  I’m not kidding.  I don’t know who started this place.  I guess it was Mr. or Ms. Starbucks or something.  But he (or she) is a genius.  I mean, who else can get people to stand in line and pay cold, hard cash for something they can get for free at work?

I feel like an insider here.  I know the language – the secret code.  There’s a special lingo it takes to order and I know it.  Maybe that makes me special.  I feel like it makes me special.  I feel like I’m doing something right and good every time I order.  “Tall Soy Chai.”  I tell the guy, “Tall Soy Chai,” and he smiles.  He knows what I mean.  I know what I mean.  No one on the streets of Redford, Michigan would have any clue what I mean.  My mother wouldn’t know what I mean.  I like that.  Ordering at Starbucks makes me feel like I know something they don’t know.  I get to wait in line and pay four bucks for ten cents worth of fluids and feel superior to everyone who’s ever pissed me off.  That’s genius!

I feel like I belong here.  It’s Starbucks that makes me a writer.  Everyone knows that.  Grab a pen; sit down at Starbucks, and BAM!  You’re a writer.  I sit here and I write in my journal and I imagine that people are watching me and thinking, “She must be a writer!”  I’m sure they wish they could be like me, sitting in Club Starbucks in the middle of a week day with nowhere else to go and nothing to worry about except which word comes next.

I notice myself sitting here trying to be noticed, or just imagining I’m being noticed, or maybe hoping to be noticed.  But then the Beverly Hills blonde across the room raises her voice a little louder, and suddenly no one is thinking about the writer in blue jeans over in the corner.  I need a haircut.  She’s dealing with a botched boob-job.  You gotta love Starbucks!