So this is my second confession for making a purchase at a franchise of a massive corporation. This time it’s not Wal-Mart, but still pretty bad. My apartment is in walking distance to several great coffee shops, but unfortunately they all close at 9, if not earlier. I desperately wanted to go out for a walk around 8:30 one evening and make a pit stop at a café to do a little reading. No shops were going to be open long enough for it to be worth it though, except for the much loathed Starbucks, which closes at 10. I don’t feel all that ashamed for going there really. I think it’s more that I feel guilty for not feeling guilty about these things. I do feel sincerely bad about how many rubber gloves I throw away at work every night (though you would agree that its entirely necessary if you saw the soiled goods I toss in those washers) and about those times when I’ve been too lazy to wash out molded old salsa jars at home and just threw them in the trash instead of the recycling. I really should be more Ashevillian and just use all my glass jars as water glasses, especially considering that my roommate Zach and I have managed to break almost all of our cups. However, we also tend to leave stuff in the refrigerator for frightening, science project long periods of time, and I’m pretty sure it’d be a health hazard. But Hell!, Zach’s pet rats crawl all over everything anyway, may as well find even more ways to make my immune system Superwoman strong (syke! I get sick ALL the time).
Going to Starbucks because the other shops aren’t open isn’t all that big of a deal, in my opinion. It does shock me how busy that place stays during the day though considering how many different local cafes and coffee houses exist in Asheville.
Anyhoo, when I arrived at Starbucks and placed my order for some fruity iced tea (like actually fruity, not like I think drinking tea is fruity) I decided to sit at the bar because the lights hanging down were brighter than those at the tables. I sat close to the wall and left a bar stool or two in between me and a pretty girl about my age who was sitting close to the espresso machines at the other end of the small bar. She was good friends with one of the girls working and they were chatting up a storm. It appeared as though she came into the shop with the intention of hanging out with her friend while she worked and to read a little as well. Her barista friend let her try some fancy coffee concoction she made up. She gave her the list of a zillion super unhealthy ingredients she put in it and her friend complimented her creation, saying that it was delicious. The barista then responded with something along the lines of “I know! It’s amazing. I’m mad that I didn’t come up with it a long time ago.” She sounded sincerely disappointed that she hadn’t come up with this drink combination sooner. It seemed like a somewhat ridiculous thing to say in my opinion. How much of a difference would it have really made if she had been drinking that drink for 6 weeks instead of 6 days, other than she’d probably be tired of it and weighed a few extra pounds.
This may be a strange stretch in the thought process, but it got me thinking about all of the times that I’ve learned some sort of lesson or new take on life from someone wiser than myself, either in real life or book form, and wished I’d known the information long before. I also thought of times I figured out simpler or more intelligent ways to get things accomplished in life and/or avoid bad unhealthy situations. I tend to always learn things the hard way, God gave an extra dose of common sense to someone else and gave me none. I wonder if he does those types of things for personal amusement, I sure as hell would. “I’ll give that kid that’s going to grow up to be a crack dealer a lot of common sense as a sort of preplanned indemnity towards his tragic fate, and give the silver spooned white girl none, because she’s got a familial cushion so she’ll be alright. I’ll just make sure a nice man marries her and takes care of her.”
Going to Starbucks because the other shops aren’t open isn’t all that big of a deal, in my opinion. It does shock me how busy that place stays during the day though considering how many different local cafes and coffee houses exist in Asheville.
Anyhoo, when I arrived at Starbucks and placed my order for some fruity iced tea (like actually fruity, not like I think drinking tea is fruity) I decided to sit at the bar because the lights hanging down were brighter than those at the tables. I sat close to the wall and left a bar stool or two in between me and a pretty girl about my age who was sitting close to the espresso machines at the other end of the small bar. She was good friends with one of the girls working and they were chatting up a storm. It appeared as though she came into the shop with the intention of hanging out with her friend while she worked and to read a little as well. Her barista friend let her try some fancy coffee concoction she made up. She gave her the list of a zillion super unhealthy ingredients she put in it and her friend complimented her creation, saying that it was delicious. The barista then responded with something along the lines of “I know! It’s amazing. I’m mad that I didn’t come up with it a long time ago.” She sounded sincerely disappointed that she hadn’t come up with this drink combination sooner. It seemed like a somewhat ridiculous thing to say in my opinion. How much of a difference would it have really made if she had been drinking that drink for 6 weeks instead of 6 days, other than she’d probably be tired of it and weighed a few extra pounds.
This may be a strange stretch in the thought process, but it got me thinking about all of the times that I’ve learned some sort of lesson or new take on life from someone wiser than myself, either in real life or book form, and wished I’d known the information long before. I also thought of times I figured out simpler or more intelligent ways to get things accomplished in life and/or avoid bad unhealthy situations. I tend to always learn things the hard way, God gave an extra dose of common sense to someone else and gave me none. I wonder if he does those types of things for personal amusement, I sure as hell would. “I’ll give that kid that’s going to grow up to be a crack dealer a lot of common sense as a sort of preplanned indemnity towards his tragic fate, and give the silver spooned white girl none, because she’s got a familial cushion so she’ll be alright. I’ll just make sure a nice man marries her and takes care of her.”
Isn’t it a beautiful thing, though, the process of slowly learning from experience, growing into who you are going to be and never really getting to that idealistic conceptualization of who you see yourself becoming, but rather molding and changing and learning and always having the same basic “soul” traveling along through the process even as your mind and body evolve? Isn’t it actually quite wonderful that the past is the past? That everyday things about one’s self and one’s surroundings creep into ever-changing phases so slowly that you don’t notice until some random morning when you look in the mirror and realize you’re not who you were before, that you’re the same person but very changed? I think it’d be pretty dull to have all things necessary to understanding life and self innately present in one’s mind, or body or wherever that crap gets stored. As much as I lose my dang car keys, I can’t imagine having had all the keys to life lessons prior to the weird ass situations I get myself into. I guess it kind of sucks when it takes me a while to realize I’ve been a fool about something for quite some time, but it seems as though that’s just part of the deal one make unconsciously with life. The clocks ticks, I’m only a passing entity. I grow and change and rot like everything else. To learn, to grow, to develop and become wiser than the day before, those are the things that make me aware that the little piece of life I was granted is thriving within me. So I don’t wish I had known the things I know now 5 years ago, I simply enjoy looking back and laughing at my younger self.
I wonder if that barista is tired of that drinkshe created yet. She may have to come up with a new one here pretty soon.
I wonder if that barista is tired of that drinkshe created yet. She may have to come up with a new one here pretty soon.
