by Zoe Abrahms
There was this place, down on Irving Street--a Mrs. Fields Cookies. I used to go there every Friday and order the same things, for years. I'm a habitual person. I get into these patterns and I like it when the people know what you're going to order and get it right when they see you walk in the door. Of course, the glass of milk and Chocolate Chewy turned into a cup of coffee and a Chocolate Chewy somewhere along the line. In any case, I don't see many Mrs. Fieldses around anymore. The one on Irving got turned into a Starbucks. And I guess it made me mad. Mostly because Starbucks doesn't have Chocolate Chewys and their pastries are always stale. But they didn't stop there: what really annoyed me what that just up the block there had been a Rainbo Foto Shop that I'd never yet been inside of, but they had this ancient rainbow sign on the front…one that flapped back and forth in the wind. Anyways, they replaced that with a Starbucks, too!
First time I saw a Starbucks--I have to admit--I had absolutely no clue what it was. I figured a Starbuck was a type of car and maybe it was some kind of fancy car shop. Literally! The word "Starbucks" just doesn't make me want coffee. It sounds like a type of motor oil or something. Maybe a type of cattle. I don't know, but definitely not coffee.
Of course, eventually I realized it was a coffee shop, but I was still scared to go inside. Mainly because I'm a painfully shy person. You wouldn't think so, not even if you met me, maybe, because I can be pretty personable when I want to be. But, like I explained, I am strictly a creature of habit and new things scare me. They took away my Mrs. Fields without telling me and put up some strange coffee shop; that made me feel more like going to a Kragen than getting a cup of joe.
In fact, to tell you the truth, I went inside various Starbuckses dozens of times before I even got up enough courage to order anything! There were always these fast paced teenagers behind the counters with purple hickies on their necks and red pimples on their faces. They grossed me out! And the phoney art deco and jazzy lounge lizard music intimidated me. And even though more and more Starbucks popped up, replacing the old haunts, I could never figure out why they were becoming so popular!
Was it the gross and oozing teenagers jittering around with coffee buzzes behind the counter? Was it the cheap artwork? Was it the watered down coffee? I couldn't be sure. All I knew is that they were everywhere. Like cockroaches.
The other day my boyfriend started his new job as a foreman, working on the hotel being built down on Market Street. He's a lot like me, a creature of habit, and he was nervous about taking a new route downtown so early in the morning alone. So, I woke up at 5:30AM with him and took the route downtown with him before the Sun even rose. I arrived at my job at 6:45AM and he stayed on the 14 MUNI bus line until he got to his job. My office was still closed, and I work on the outskirts of downtown and the only thing around it was a gas station, a Burger King, some kind of corner shop, and... guess what!...a Starbucks. I ended up in the Starbucks (escaping the San Francisco winter cold) with a watery capuccino in my hands and a stale bearclaw.
I must have sat in that Starbucks for two hours, watching the sun rise in a pink sky over the gas station awning. My office opens at 8:00AM; I know that now. And when I got into my cubicle I was still holding the empty cup of cappuccino and little waxed Starbucks pastry bag. It's still sitting by my computer right now. And I feel bad about it. I really do.
My co-workers look at it and are ashamed. Starbucks is like a suicide cult; you buy in and murder your own originality, and when you see people who support it, it makes you a little sad, because it means that soon every block will be the same everywhere, and San Francisco will have disappeared. When you walk inside they have hiring applications right there in the front. You don't even need to ask. It's like a big old sign saying "Join Our Army"! The pimply faced teenagers behind the counter have become soldiers of conformity and are marching onward into a new and watery-coffee-ridden world....
Zoe Abrahms is a freelance writer currently living in San Francisco.
