The regulars

As I spend countless hours of my free time at Starbucks, I become more acquainted with some of the other regulars that frequent this location.

Of course, I'm sure I've got them all beat on time spent sitting in Starbucks.

I don't know if I've made it really clear as to WHY I'm spending so much time in here. It's not just because I don't have the internet at home but also because of my CD collection.

I've taken on the supreme task of uploading 800+ CD's from my entire collection into my iTunes. I bought a 200 gig hard drive which will more than accommodate my music collection and then some.

I think the box for my Seagate external hard drive said it will hold up to like 30,000 or 40,000 songs. Awesome! I bought it sometime ago so that I could upload my friend Kris's entire music collection. Apparently, he has over 15,000 songs on his computer.

Anyway, every time I'm here in Starbucks, I have several CD's that I bring with me as well as my external hard drive. I probably bring about 40 to 50 CD's at a time to burn onto my hard drive.

The reason I bring them to Starbucks is because I can use iTunes in conjunction with the internet to assist me in labeling all the tracks on every CD I upload into iTunes.

iTunes is such a fantastic and wonderful program. It saves so much time to be able to insert one of my many CD's and have iTunes read it and know what it is and automatically pull up the track names and the title of the disc and the year it was produced and the album artwork!

It must look pretty funny to the people who come and go at this Starbucks. I sit here at a table and pretty much set up shop.

On my left is stacks of CD's. In the center is my laptop. On the right is more stacks of CD's that I've already uploaded and the external hard drive.

My own little Starbucks office.

It brings curious onlookers wondering just what the hell I'm doing. It also gives me the opportunity to get to know more about the people I see in here all the time even when I'm not wasting away in here myself.

There is this Frenchman that comes in here from time to time. I finally got to meet him and have had several long discussions with him that have been quite interesting. For being in the States for 14 years, his accent is still as strong as it would be as if I had met him in France. He's a friendly fellow and I enjoy talking to him.

Then there is this biker guy and his girlfriend or wife. I'm not sure what she is. He is part of the biker club called "BACA". That stands for "Bikers Against Child Abuse". Personally, I find that to be an oxymoron because most bikers represent violence. But he's a good guy. I'm assuming that because I've never really talked to him.

There is another guy that I talked to who comes in later at night that is a long haul trucker. He's a nice guy. I was trying to assist him with a software issue he was having with his iTunes and iPod. We also had a great talk about Apple Computer.

Sometimes during the day, an attractive Asian woman comes in here to do school work. At least, I think that's what she is doing. Maybe she is studying for her real estate exam. Maybe she's writing a graphic romance novel that will have Fabio on the cover! Or she might be a terrorist writing a letter to Allah and cursing the Starbucks with some kind of wacky Jihad.

There is a heavy set blond woman that comes in. She seems to be friends with the biker dude and his ol' lady. She's always reading a book. She's also friends with one of the Baristas here and will sometimes buy lunch for her. Sometimes she'll even pick up lunch for the whole Starbucks crew. She's cool. I've talked to her.

When I used to come in here during the morning, there was this one woman that was (and still is) always in here reading the paper. Sometimes she would bring her son with her. From what my ex-girlfriend barista told me, she lives in some motel room because she's fallen on hard times or something. I don't really remember.

I also see a lot of in and out regulars. These are the ones that don't take a load off and drink their coffee inside. They're "on-the-go". One woman comes in and always has this scowl on her face. She also looks like she used to be a man. Or a man that likes to dress like a woman. Maybe she's just ugly. And that scowl on her face doesn't help.

But there is one couple that is beyond bizarre. They are one of the couples that come in later at night.

The guy is tall and slightly chubby. He is always wearing the same thing when he comes in here as well as his wife/girlfriend. According to one of the baristas here, he is some kind of artist. He does paintings, sketches and makes music. I heard one of his discs and it was very Phillip Glass meets Pink Floyd meets Vangelis' "Blade Runner" score... only bad.

He brought in a portfolio of his work to show to the manager of Starbucks. Some of his paintings weren't too shabby. But what do I know about art? Of course, what the hell does anyone really know about art? You know what you like and what appeals to you and that's all that matters, right? So, in this regard, there were some paintings he made that I would buy.

His girlfriend/wife is odd. She is very homely and extremely shy. I also find that she might be slightly mentally dysfunctional. She always walks somewhat slumped over as if she is trying to hide. And she NEVER leaves the artist mans side.

They chain smoke like you wouldn't believe. And the stench from them is pretty unbearable if you're close to them. I don't think the bathe much. I'm not saying this to be rude or mean spirited. They're just very odd and smelly.

A few nights ago, actually it was the day after Thanksgiving, the man approached me with a flash drive wanting me to insert in into my USB and look at his work and listen to his music.

Luckily, I was on my way out and didn't have the time. I've seen him since then and he hasn't offered again. I'm hoping he doesn't because I don't feel comfortable using the flash drive of a stranger on my computer.

I've noticed that his wife/girlfriend never speaks. Anytime she is sitting with him, she just rocks back and forth in her seat slightly and he does all the talking. She never even responds to things he is saying. It's strange to watch and somewhat creepy.

The man seems fairly intelligent, however. I sometimes overhear the conversations that he has with his lady and they are fairly interesting observations or opinions he has on current topics and history and art.

Anyway, that's my take on the majority of the regulars that I've encountered at my local Starbucks. I will say that I'm already sick of this XM Satellite Radio Network "Hear Music" that is playing the same Christmas songs over and over.

Then again, if I didn't spend so much time in here, I wouldn't care!

Here's a funny story to close my bog with.

There is a younger barista that works here named Alena. She's a cutie but kind of snobby and really into herself and thinks everyone else should be, too. She's one of the employees I've had a couple of problems with in the past.

Last night, these two guys were in here (I think they even knew her) waiting for the drinks they ordered.

They went outside to smoke. At one point, one of the guys came in and walked up to the bar and said to Alena:

"What's up with the blankets on your car windows? Are you just lazy or do you just not have a scraper for your windows?"

Alena's response was classic and made me spit up coffee. She replied, quite simply and cocky:

"Both."

As I spit up coffee, I laughed out loud at that. I also gained a whole new respect for her that made her more sexy to me for some reason.

The guy then made the comment that scrapers were only a dollar at the dollar store.

It was this that made me get up and go to my own car and get a brand new scraper I had in my trunk. It was an extra I had. I gave it to Alena so she wouldn't have to put those silly towels (not blankets as the guy thought) on her windows anymore.

With that, I packed up for the night and went home and watched South Park.

I don't care how odd, silly, lonely, loserish or whatever I look like to people as they come in here. Starbucks is presently my home away from home. I like it here.

If you're ever in the area, stop on by and have a cup of joe with me. I'll buy!

-Mike The Janitor
©2006
Millenoma Publishing