Furby

So, there I was at Starbucks, grading papers and trying to ward off an Overused Comma coma with a Cranberry Bliss bar, when Tiny Bladder at the next table asked me to watch his stuff for the millionth time.  I rolled my eyes, stuffed a chunk of Cranberry Bliss into my mouth and said, “Dude, I don’t care how cold it is outside, no one wants your dollar-store notebook and the ratty goddamn trench coat your mama obviously dressed you in.” Somehow, through the crumbly brown sugary goodness that fell from my mouth he heard, “Sure! No problem!” Then he dashed off.

While Tiny Bladder ran to the bathroom, a fetid odor snuck into the coffee shop, curdling the last of the lemon frosting sticking to my fingers.  I held my nose in the nick of time because, given a few more seconds, it would have jumped off my face and scurried out the door.  For there in the doorway stood Furby.  I groaned.  I had thirty-three more papers to grade with sentences like:

Homosexuality didn’t have a name in the 12th Century.  It was called gay in the 20th Century being that men what lived together were happy.

And

During the American Civil War in the late 1960s feminism was dying.  It was in its death throws.

I did not have time to deal with Furby’s brand of crazy.  My stomach tried to dissolve itself with its own acid as Furby’s pungent, dank, mop soaked in urine, moldy cabbage scent settled over the store.  I turned back to my papers hoping Furby would not sense the crazy magnet implanted behind my left ear during a secret government experiment in the 1980s.  He had thirty or so mangy stuffed animal torsos from the Island of Plague Infected Toys pinned to his moldy jacket and 70s era running shorts.  As he made his way toward me (natch!) eyeless heads with mouths disfigured by rats and dry rot taunted me, “We’re coming to get you, Dingo!  We’re coming to get YOUooouuuuUUU!”

It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, I told myself, closing my eyes and wishing it all away.  It worked.  Sort of.  When I opened my eyes, Furby was seated at Tiny Bladder’s table drinking Tiny Bladder’s coffee and writing in Tiny Bladder’s notebook. 

“Excuse me, “ I said.  “Someone’s sitting there; he’ll be right back.”

Furby continued to scribble in Tiny Bladder’s notebook.  Although Furby ignored me, his Typhoid Toys did not.  Bouncing and bobbing with every elaborate flourish of Furby’s Tiny Bladder’s pen, their empty eye sockets stared at me accusingly, spewing reproach (not to mention hantavirus) in my direction.  I was supposed to be watching Tiny Bladder’s things!  What kind of derelict sentinel am I?  I had to do something.

Before I could interrupt him again, Furby paused from his frantic writing.  Apparently, all that creative activity, together with the large coffee, were making him warm.  So he removed the head-studded coat with some fanfare, and the smell of sick room sweat and body odor became even more overpowering. 

But at that moment, thoughts of compassion, understanding, and kindness rose above the wormwood stench of Furby’s presence.  Furby, after all, seemed to have fallen on hard times.  I was warmed by the holiday music playing over the speakers. The beautifully lit professionally photographed pictures of pumpkin pie latte evoked Normal Rockwell images of friends and family.  Furby’s furry contingent of contagion was his family.  And I, I am a friend to man, a comrade of all mankind.  My mind floated on thoughts of “we are the world” and “we are the children,” and, miraculously, my body went with it, all the way up to the manager where I, with compassion, understanding, and kindness said, “He’s using someone else’s stuff.” Because nothing overcomes a spiritual bond with your fellow man like good ol’ property rights.  It’s the American Way!

I stayed at the counter thinking of Peace on Earth and ordering another Cranberry Bliss as the manager gently, and with compassion, understanding, and kindness, gave Furby the boot.  Furby gathered his things and flounced out of the Starbucks with a primetime pageant-worthy flounce to end all flounces.  If trumpets had heralded his departure, it would have been no more dramatic.  Still, if he had turned at the door and said, “Good day, sir!  I said, GOOD DAY!” I would have applauded.

Instead, I hummed Fa la la la la! La la la la! all the way back to my seat and launched into another poorly written paper.  Tiny Bladder returned.  Dear god!  What took him so fucking long! 

“Hey!” he exclaimed.  “What happened to my coffee?” He eyed me suspiciously.

“Well,” I began to explain but was cut short.

“And where’s my coat?”

Oh shit.  Still sitting on the chair was Furby’s coat of heads, all of them staring at me critically with their vacant eyeholes.  Tiny Bladder’s trench had departed.

“That’s not your coat?” I asked.

Yes, there are eight million stories in this naked city.  And tonight, one of those stories is a little less naked. 

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My Fat Mouth

Quick Update:  I forgot to tell you, I did another post at The Greenists.


Christmas came early to Casa de Dingo in the form of a 246-page glossy magazine.  Although I try to camouflage my fashionista aspirations beneath sweatshirts, tattered jeans, and slept-in pony-tails to avoid the ravenous paparazzi waiting to plaster my face across the latest copy of Useless and Oh no, not her again magazines, I cannot deny my love for Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, and InStyle.  I consume them from cover to cover, ripping out the perfume inserts and rubbing them all over my body like poor woman’s Febreeze.  Except for the Prada Milano perfume insert.  It makes you smell less like Febreeze and more like the sticky stained carpet in a whore house.

It was with glee that I flipped through the pages of the November Glamour because it was the issue that promised to feature “plus-size” models — by plus size, they meant anyone who can wear corduroy without looking like a pipe cleaner.  What a disappointment!  Only two of the gorgeous plus-sized models were modeling clothes and even then, they had their arms crossed protectively in front of their bodies as if to shield readers from the sight of their unemaciated flesh:  Oh noes!  A Size-12!  Won’t someone think of the children?!1! 

I flipped through page after page of waifs, sticks, and cadavers balancing lollipop heads on necks so skinny they’d fail inspection at the broom factory.  I finally found models larger than the rolled Benjamins Kate Moss uses to snort her coke.  The luscious ladies were lumped together — literally, lumped together like tumors — in a two page spread waaaaaaay at the back of the magazine.  Fuck you Glamour.  Fuck.  You.  Nobody puts baby in — oh, wait, nevermind, Johnny Castle has left the building.

As fate would have it, last week my students were working on their research papers about advertising and media.  One of my students, a café au lait complexioned beauty with a honeyed patois that conjures images of Coronas, beaches, and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” was struggling with her paper about the negative impact fashion magazines have on the female psyche. I don’t play favorites, Innernetz.  I really don’t.  I just like some students more than others.  Caribbean Queen just happens to be one of those students who could write her research paper on the back of a matchbook and light it on fire as she is handing it to me, and she would still get an A.  So, when I saw her chewing the end of her pen, I made my way to her desk.

“Stuck?” I asked.

Caribbean Queen sighed deeply and pulled a copy of Vogue from her backpack.  She slapped it onto her desk in disgust.  “I’m not in there.  I’m never in there!” she said.  I looked at this smart, funny, beautiful girl and felt her dismay.  She could forget about ever finding her Rubenesque body-type modeling an off the shoulder, cinched-waist, bracelet-sleeved, metallic pleated skirt, rock, paper, scissors, mini-shift in the pages of any fashion magazine.  The Glamour debacle, fresh as a newly erupted cold sore, propelled me to action.  Oh hellz no!  It was not going to go down like this.  I was not going to allow her to even begin to disparage herself.  I was going to change her life.  Change. Her. Life! 

I grabbed the pen from her hand and began to write.  Sparks erupted and the smoke that rose from her wide-ruled college pages was heady incense.  I gave her the names of web sites like Shapely Prose, Big Fat Blog, and Fatshionista.  I told her she is beautiful just as she is blah, blah, blah, don’t try to conform to arbitrary standards of beauty, yadda, yadda, yadda, Madison Avenue’s boy-like model of feminine beauty is more a statement about pederasty than pretty, nod, wink, nod.

I set the pen down only when the plastic casing started to melt.  She looked at me with awe and adoration.  I was humbled, Innernetz.  Humbled.  She was silent for a moment. Suddenly, tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks.  A simple “Thank you” would have sufficed. And some fresh brownies at Christmas.  And maybe a Moleskine notebook for Teacher Appreciation Day, engraved with “Best Teacher Ever!” But that’s it!  Anything more and I’d have to report it as income.

I looked into her watery eyes and mine grew watery, too.  My lips were pursed into a tight but quivering smile.  A hug was about to happen and my hands were already flapping a little.  She, meanwhile, was speechless. 

“Ms. Dingo, I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

I managed to gasp, “Yes?”

“I want to see someone in the magazines who looks like me!”

“Exactly!” I said, and reached for that hug. 

“No!” she wailed.  “I didn’t mean fat!  I meant Black! Do you think I’m fat?”

“No! Nononononononononononono!” I spit out as fast as I could.  But it was too late.  The fat was out of the bag, spread all in her notebook.  Add some flour to her notebook, pop it in the oven, and you have a pie crust.  Add some baking soda and milk: biscuits.  Delicious biscuits.

By this time, the rest of the class had turned their attention to us, wondering why Caribbean Queen was crying and why I was backpedaling so fast I knocked yesterday onto its ass.  Fortunately, there was only fifteen minutes of class left and I decided to let them out early.  Trying to recover my composure, I walked to the front of the class and announced, “Remember, your papers are due on Friday.  And please, please, PLEASE!, remember to fat chick.  Fact check!  I meant fact check!”

Ah yes, Innernetz, life is all about Teachable Moments.  That day, however, I was the one who got schooled.

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Pound Of Flesh

Quick Update:  I did a movie review for The Greenists.  Please check it out!

Tap, tap, tap…testing 1, 2, 3…is anybody out there?

Well, that was an unexpected and unintended bloggy hiatus! 

The last two weeks of class were a flurry of papers, projects, exams, and grading.  You’d think that once grades were submitted I’d be able to kick back with a beer and revel in the five minutes I have to myself before I begin prepping for the fall.  Oh, Innernetz, how silly you are!  I had to use four of those minutes to catch up on the many things I had let slide during the summer session.  After grades are submitted, my personal life takes over. Among the many joyous tasks I had: calls to my slumlord about the dismal water pressure that had turned my shower into Chinese water torture, involuntary volunteer work, and inventing new miracle diets that magically and effortlessly pack on the pounds.  Yes, I did watch eighteen nonstop hours of Seasons 1 and 2 of True Blood, but that indulgence was earned since, even after grades were submitted, I spent a disproportionate amount of time performing cutting edge surgery on students whose heads were so far up their asses that their burps were indistinguishable from their farts

All of the students (and some of their parents) think that if they could just meet with me, they’d be able to convince me that getting that pedicure was much more important than attending the mid-term exam.  And every semester I get one or two students who tell me that they thought all of the assignments were optional.  I tell you what, if they were as creative and diligent in doing the assigned work as they were with coming up with excuses for not doing it, they’d all be A+ students.  But they’re not.  They’re just idiots.  Two seconds after grades were submitted I began receiving phone calls and emails asking, “What can I do about my grade?” My standard answer always starts with, “First, build a time machine....” They don’t think that’s as funny as I do. 

One student failed the course because she missed an entire week of class.  She flounced into my office peeling like a soft shell crab, her tan lines fish belly white against her crocodile jerky skin.  “I told you that I had a family vacation that was non-negotiable!” she shrieked, waving her arms with such fury and drama that she looked like a fight scene from the Matrix.  Layers of baked flesh drifted onto my desk as though I had landed in a dust-mite’s dream.  Flake threw herself into the chair next to my desk and crossed her arms like a petulant child.  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Flake demanded, her face shriveled like an Appalachian apple doll.  What else could I say?  I gently pushed a tube of Aveeno across the desk and held up the garden hose I keep in my desk.  “She rubs the lotion on her skin....”

The last time I saw skin like hers, I was Flake’s age and working at a video store.  (Just in case any of my students are reading: yes, they had televisions and even videos when I was your age.  Yes, the videos were made of wood.) My co-irker was a tall bottle-blonde who aspired to be a supermodel.  I didn’t see it ever happening only because she had a congenital defect that was impossible to overlook: she was butt ugly.  Willem Defoe/Janet Reno love-child ugly. If ugly were a sport, she would win the Tour de Ugly every year and, every single year, the French would accuse her of taking ugly-enhancing drugs.  My co-irker would lay out in the sun every chance she got, but her skin never changed from baboon-ass red to the deep copper tan she so desired.  I called her Chernobyl Barbie.

One day, after being on vacation for almost two weeks, Chernobyl Barbie walked into the video store looking as if she had vacationed on the sun.  Her skin was brown, blistered, and pork rind crispy.  In her red and white sundress, she resembled a KFC Chicken Strip.  Chernobyl Barbie slathered on cheap body lotion throughout the day to soothe her skin and prolong her third degree burn tan.  She scared more children than usual.

By closing time, her chest was an oozing mass of moist, peeling, bubbly flesh.  After returning some videos to the stacks, she came behind the counter where I was counting the day’s receipts, noting the surge in rentals of Nightmare on Elm Street. Chernobyl Barbie went to grab the next pile of unshelved movies from the floor and tripped.  I tried to catch her but my palm landed with a schwack! in the middle of her lubricated chest. It was like sinking my hand into Vaseline covered Tempur-Pedic foam, patented NASA research and all.  I yanked my hand away but, after her twelve hours of regular basting, my hand just slid across her Butterball chest, the skin curling like ribbon candy and encasing each digit like a Chinese finger trap. And the smell!  I gagged and tried to breathe through my nose as her skin gave off the swampy, wet smell of a dirty fish tank.  Where was her filter?  Must change her filter!

“Get it off!  Get it off!” I screamed, snapping my hands back and forth.  But the dead flesh clung on, not wanting to relinquish its hold on living cells.  Chernobyl Barbie was no help.  She was staring in disbelief at the raw white skin emblazoned on her chest in the distinct shape of my palm.  With a final violent shake, the skin came loose and dropped onto the glass counter with a sickening schlock! Imagine the sound you make when you suck Jello right out of the bowl: schlock!

I don’t remember much after that, and neither would you.  But I do remember that, for the rest of that summer, Chernobyl Barbie walked around with my handprint on her chest like a turkey drawing kids do at Thanksgiving, except that, against the crispy pork-rind skin next to it, it looked like a marshmallow turkey.  Still, somehow, she continued to scare more kids than usual.

I thought about Chernobyl Barbie as I watched Flake douse herself with my tube of lotion.  As she sputtered and spewed about her vacation and how I owed her a good grade, her dry skin crackled and threatened to split like a crusty baked potato.  Where was my sour cream?

With the apartment in such a state of disrepair that Dingo Girl and Not a Dingo are weighing the benefits of homelessness and the drama of summer semester just beginning to fade, students for next semester are already starting to contact me (“Do we have to read all the books on the syllabus?”).  I have been too tired and unmotivated to blog, preferring instead to escape my surroundings via the Fine Living channel. But that will change soon.  I’ve scheduled myself for a thirty minute nap on Thursday.  After that, I’ll be Dingolicious all over again.

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Dingo’s Gambit

Summer classes are like opening Christmas gifts.  You hope for diamonds and car keys but inevitably you wind up with a mug with something moderately funny on it, a coin purse, and a few fruitcakes.  Hell, one Christmas as a child, I got an airgun and a rosary.  That’s summer class, Innernetz.  No tennis bracelets.  All socks, underwear, and talking bathroom scales.

One student showed up on the first day of class wearing a thin see-through t-shirt.  Over his left breast — on his skin — he’d drawn a pocket with lines so wavy that I wondered if he suffered from acute astigmatism or, more likely, heroin withdrawal.  As part of what must have been this week’s art therapy assignment, he’d also drawn a fake nametag on the fake pocket.  There, in bright gold marker under “Hello, My Name Is” was the name “Playa.” Yes, the thirty-ish-year-old student with mutton chop sideburns and a hand-drawn name tag wants to be called “Playa.” Um, no. 

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked him. “Naw, man.  This is my tag, man,” he responded, using his right fist to deliver two weak thumps to his scrawny chest like a consumptive Roman legionnaire. He tried to catch the eye of the class slut woman sitting next to him. She didn’t notice.  She was distracted by her own issues, sliding around in her seat as if sitting on a Spirograph.  I couldn’t tell if she was perfecting the moves for her next lap dance or if she had simply forgotten to take off her NASCAR-grade Mobil 1 pre-moistened panties. 

“Well, my roster says your name is Archie so why don’t we go with that.” He grumbled and frowned.  By exposing his true identity, I had obviously ruined his chances with Miss Fucksalot who, by this time, had hooked her stilettos around the legs of the chair and sat slouched, staring at the floor.

Playa was a stroll on the beach.  I pwned him the very first day.  Check and mate.  But the Gary Busey lookalike who sits behinds Playa is a different story.  Busey wants nothing less than complete victory and every day is a battle for control of the proverbial chessboard.  Busey is a pompous brownnoser whose self-important classroom pontifications make Bill O’Reilly look like a zen mantra.  This alone wouldn’t be so bad if Busey could simply stay on topic.  Instead, every single class he channels Sarah Palin after a pot of espresso.  On top of this, he inexplicably lugs a ginormous wheeled suitcase to class every day.  I don’t know what he carries in that suitcase, but I’ll admit that I’ve cut him some slack just in case it’s money.

Yesterday, as I started taking attendance, I noticed Busey wasn’t in his usual seat.  I sighed a deep, contented sigh.  It was going to be a good day.  I wouldn’t have to cut him off in the middle of a pretentious speech wholly unrelated to the class discussion.  I wouldn’t need to shut down his impromptu poll of the class regarding whether or not I should extend the next paper deadline.  My attendance policy is notably draconian.  If you miss attendance you are marked absent.  No excuses.  Period.  End of story.  I looked forward to marking a giant purple X next to his name on the attendance sheet.

When I was halfway through the roster I heard a door in the hall creak open on its rusty hinges. The sound echoed, bouncing off the grey industrial walls in warning.  The creaking continued.  The sound became the wheels of a mammoth suitcase creaking down my spine.  It felt as if someone was wheeling over my grave.  My eyes whipped to the tiny glass partition in the classroom door.  Busey!  Damn!  I looked at my roster and knew I had just seconds to complete it before he and his Samsonite wife came sauntering into the classroom.  I decided to speed things up a bit.

“Sleeper!”

“Here!”

“Miss Fucksalot!”

“Here!”

I could hear his Bruno Magli’s slapping against the tile.  Closer and closer.  Faster, Dingo, I thought.  Faster!

“Smart Guy!” “Here!” “Clueless” “Here!” “Nice Dresser!” “Here!”

I looked out the partition window again and it was almost my downfall.  I made eye contact with Busey.  He saw me standing there with my gradebook in hand and broke into a run.  Shit!  I called names and didn’t even wait for the students to acknowledge their presence.

“Exchange Student, Emo, Chatty Cathy, Cheerleader!” “Here! Here! Here! Here!”

Busey was racing down the hallway, the wheels of his luggage shrieking, “Here! Here! Here!” I watched as he swam in a panic toward the door, eyes dark and flickering like a shark about to feed, trying desperately to maintain his tenuous grasp on his carry-on, that all-knowing, toothy grin on his face.  Fortunately, his suitcase acted as a wobbly anchor, slowing his arrival by overturning and crashing into a wall.  If I hadn’t been holding pen and paper I would’ve rubbed my hands together with glee and thrown back my head with a hearty “Mwahahaha!” But there wasn’t time.

“Shy Girl!” “Here.”

And DONE!

I scribbled an X next to Busey’s name, a bruise he would wear for the rest of the summer semester, and tossed the attendance sheet onto the desk in triumph.  He dashed through the door two seconds later, his baggage slamming into the doorjamb and sliding to a halt.  “HERE!” he screamed. 

“Awww, sorry,” I said.  “I just finished taking attendance.”

“But Ms. Dingo —”

I put on a sad face and slowly shook my head as I held my thumb and finger an inch apart, “So close, Busey.  So close.” That was when he righted his battered suitcase and began to unzip it.  Fuck.  Was this it?  Is this how I was goin’ down?

He unzipped the suitcase just enough to slide one sweat-slicked arm into the dark opening and pulled out — a Diet Pepsi.  Which he offered to me. 

“But Ms. Dingo, I was late because I stopped to get you a Diet Pepsi.  You always get one during break and I thought you’d like one at the beginning of class.”

The Diet Pepsi was in bad shape.  It was dented and hissing from its perilous ride down the hallway.  His sweaty arm reached in my direction, pushing the battered nectar toward me.  I hesitated for two nanoseconds before accepting his offer.

“Take your seat, Busey. Don’t be late again.”

As Busey made his way to the back of the class, banging shins and elbows with his monstrous bag, I caught the slight glimmer of a smirk.  But I didn’t mind.  After I let the Diet Pepsi settle, I would be basking in glory as the luscious drink burned its way down my throat.

Well played, Busey.  Well played.  But the game has only just begun.

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How ’Bout ’Dem Apples!

Sometimes I think I can change the world.  Sometimes I think that I can do something that makes a difference.  I usually feel this way when I’m listening to the Broadway soundtrack to Hair. I get pumped.  I look up volunteer positions, I make sure I’m getting Rachel Maddow’s tweets and then…and then, I just get deflated.  It’s overwhelming. Bailout.  Homelessness. Domestic Violence. Illiteracy.  Animal Abuse.  Natural Disaster Relief. Fashion Policing and Passing Judgment on Tourists.  There’s so much to be done and I can’t even remember to change Not a Dingo’s litter box with any regularity.  And then sometimes I feel that the best thing I can do is to bolster the economy by ordering another Venti Earl Grey and slice of pound cake from the grumpy Starbucks barista.  And no, I’m not putting a tip in the tip jar. 

Really, who does that?  You know when I put a tip in the Starbucks tip jar?  When the whole bean coffee Mr. Dingo drinks isn’t on the shelf and someone runs to the back to get some for me.  Not when someone puts a tea bag in a cup of hot water.  Excuse me, isn’t that your job?  You want me to tip you for doing your job?  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am definitely in the overtipper category.  Waiters, hairdressers, delivery people, and cab drivers love me. These are all people who tend to go above their job description to make my interaction with them the best it can be.  Refills before I ask, squeezing me into an appointment at the last minute, delivering my pizza so that it’s hot and right side up keeping the cheese on the pizza and not sticking to the cardboard box, seeing me waving frantically in the pouring rain and pulling over to haul me and a soaking Dingo Girl to a vet appointment uptown — those things get tips.  Big tips.  But, no, grumpy barista, you are not getting a tip from me for simply turning from the cash register to the hot water spout and dropping in a tea bag. 

But lately, I have had to change my grumpy barista tipping policy.  You see, I’ve become one of those people.  You know the people I mean, the people you see sitting in Starbucks for hours at a time typing away on laptops or scribbling furiously in a wire-ringed notebook.  I always asked myself, “Don’t they have an office or at least a dining room table to work from!  Who comes to Starbucks to work?” People like me, that’s who.  People who can’t see their desk for all the crap piled on top of it.  People like me who cannot shut out the catcalls and running commentary on my poor housekeeping skills from the dishes in the kitchen and laundry on the floor.  And the mold in the bathtub shooting dice with the soap scum?  They taunt me.  Oh, how they taunt me. 

You know who else works at Starbucks?  People who can’t type a complete sentence without Not a Dingo walking all over the keyboard on her way to the mouse.  The mouse she then chooses to sleep on only to wake up when I try to slide my hand under her dingleberried butt to do a cut and paste.  And waking her up means that I must want to pet her, right?  So she makes sure she stays within arms reach by sitting in front of the monitor. 9999999999999999999999999999 (okay, that was from Not a Dingo walking on the 8888888888888 keyboard and I’m too lazy to delete it).

And then there’s Dingo Girl.  Dingo Girl who loves her mama so much that she must sit and whine at her mama’s feet for attention.  If whining doesn’t work, she’s sure that pawing at my arm will.  Or maybe licking my feet.  Put shoes on and she licks my leg.  Put on jeans studded with cactus tines and she stands on her hind feet to lick my face.  There’s so much love at Casa Dingo.  Love is killing me.  Hey!  I think that’s a great title for a new Lifetime Movie. 

*announcer voice*

One woman.  Two fur-kids.  She’s slowly losing her mind.  Is the descent into madness a sadistic plan by the four-legged critters or is this woman simply unable to love?
Starring Melissa Gilbert, Garfield, and that dog from the Taco Bell commercials.

*end announcer voice*

Really, go set your Tivos.  I’m sure that my screenplay is going to be picked up by Jane Campion or Sofia Coppola any day now.

I could go into the office to work but I share an office with about a gabillion other adjuncts.  It’s less of an office and more like detention from The Breakfast Club.  No one really goes there to work.  It’s a place to go to commiserate about The Man and hand out leftover homemade cupcakes.  Here’s how my attempt to work in the office went late last week,

Me:  (going to my desk and taking out a six inch pile of papers and notebooks)
Co-Irker #1:  Talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk…My daughter had her dance recital.  Talktalktalktalktalk…living room…talktalktalktalktalk…Peru…talktalktalk..ha!ha!ha!...cupcakes!
Co-Irker#2:  Slurp! Chomp! Chomp!  Slurp!  Click! Click! Click! Slurp!

Apparently Co-Irker#2 needs to get his dentures fixed.  He brought in an apple and proceeded to grind it to applesauce with ill-fitting dentures.  He couldn’t bite the apple like a normal person.  Instead, he would slurp the apple creating a suction of saliva and spittle that softened the peel allowing him to chomp into the crunchy flesh.  Of course the saliva made the apple a little slippery. His mouth would lose suction and he’d have to do the slurping thing again.  Then, his dentures would shift and protrude from his mouth like the creature from Aliens.  They’d chatter together with a clicking sound as he masticated the poor fruit and then the cycle would start all over again.

So, I’ve ended up at Starbucks.  And the past two weeks have been more productive than any day I’ve had in the past two years.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner!  The only down side is not having internet access.  I mean, they have it but I’m not about to pay ten bucks for it.  Hmmm, could the lack of internet access have something to do with my productivity.  Nah, that’s just too silly to believe.  And oh, Innernetz, the people who come to Starbucks are a strange lot.  I have some stories for you.  But those are for another day.

What I want to tell you is that I tip at Starbucks now.  I tip a lot.  Hell, it’s more like I’m paying rent.  I’m not tipping for my hot water and tea bag.  I’m tipping for a place to work, a place to think, and a place to people-watch and be highly entertained.  I love you Virginia Woolf, but you didn’t need a room of your own.  You needed a Starbucks.

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