The Latte Manifesto

SO. After months of visualization I decided that today will be the day I put on something other than pajamas. I will go run an errand. Outside. Around people. I grabbed a large bulletin board and bag of books that needed to go live in Portland. I tromped off to the Mailboxes Etc. across the street. Which apparently no longer exists. But I was all excited about Being! Outside! (it’s gorgeous out again) and I gamely decided to hike me, my ass, a 2×3 foot chunk of particleboard and 25 lbs. of oversized reading material to the UPS Store. You may be wondering why I would walk all the way the UPS Store when, on the way, I passed several other suitable shipping outlets. Let me tell you. This particular UPS Store has a unusual and quite wonderful hiring procedure. The job application consists of only one question: Are you a 20-year-old male uberhottie with bedroom eyes, a certain Goth/Glam sensibility, snarky sense of humor, and insatiable desire to flirt with dorky, married female customers in their late 30′s? Answer: Yes. You’re HIRED! However, there is the trek there and back, through clouds of cig smoke and dodging trails of my god I hope it’s not human poop and Berkeley High brats and street kids dealing drugs and crazy, sad, crazy homeless people and the obligatory crappy street performers. Ugh. I also stopped at Planet Smoothie for a True Blueberry with a Mood Boost (apparently has yet to take effect). Delicious. Insanely. Leaving the house = good. But. It took two people 10 minutes to get their trip together enough to spend the 30 seconds required to actually MAKE the smoothie, because the other 9 minutes and 30 seconds were spent discussing what to do about being out of peanut butter. (Answer: Pretend that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are, and always have been, identical to peanut butter.) It went something like this:

Smoothie Moron #1: (takes Other Customer’s order and begins to assemble ingredients) Smoothie Moron #2: (takes my order and begins to assemble ingredients) Smoothie Morons #1 and #2: (engage in 7 minutes of barely audible conversation about ingredients for Other Customer’s smoothie.) Smoothie Moron #1: (hauls out a giant bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups) Smoothie Moron #2: (stands there holding blender full of my not-yet-smoothified items) Other Customer: Oh, I don’t want Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in my smoothie. Don’t you have peanut butter? Smoothie Moron #1: These are exactly the same as peanut butter. Smoothie Moron #2: (totally incapacitated by this rapture-inducing debate) Other Customer: No, I don’t want those. If you don’t have peanut butter I’ll just order something else. It’s no problem. Smoothie Moron #1: These are what we always put in that smoothie. Smoothie Moron #2: (immobilized) Other Customer: I’ll just order something else. Smoothie Moron #1: These taste exactly the same as peanut butter. Other Customer: No, that’s OK. I’ll just order something else. Smoothie Moron #2: (slips into coma) Smoothie Moron #1: Ok, what would you like instead? Other Customer I’ll have the Chocolate Peanut Butter smoothie instead. Me: (brain melts)

OK, at this point in my trip, the leaving the house question is a wash. UPS Store = 1 point for; travel to/from the UPS Store = 1 point against. Planet Smoothie product = 1 point for; Planet Smoothie employees = 1 point against. And then. A little backstory on the tie breaking event. I am among the many fans of Overheard in New York. Over the weekend, my friend Eve and I decided that if a similar site existed for Berkeley, every overheard conversation would be about weed. “You could put your weed in that!” “Hey, where’d you get the weed?” “Where ya going? Oh, to get some weed.” We found this notion hilarious. And so, I’m now walking back toward home, sucking down the life-affirmingly good smoothie, being asked “Spare some change?” every five seconds, and I pass a group of exceptionally grimy looking white-with-dreadlocks pseudo-homeless kids slouched against the wall of a bookstore. Without missing a beat, one of the kids looks me right in the eye and says: “Spare a bowl?” I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide which side scored the final point.