Suburban Jungle

I loved your comment and oh so randomly ordered that very drink just the other day. However, I like my anorexic, small difference.  They just don’t fill it up as much.  It took them 7 hours to make it, but it was good… darn good.  Thanks for reading and enjoying, it sounds like you could take my job.  Luckily, I don’t get paid, so the competition… not so fierce. 

Jenny from the blog.
If you like this check out the blog http://www.suburbanjungle.net
more ramblings about Earth shattering issues like the Starbucks language barrier.

Hi Jenny;
As a Starbucks habitue and observer and chronicler of the absurd myself, I was just reflecting on the ‘lingua arabica’ that used to be so unique to the independent coffee shop/cafe’. A ‘secret passcode’ needed for entry into the society of the ‘regulars’. With the advent of Starbucks and it’s clones, this ‘coffee latin’ has been weighed, measured, pre-packaged, and corporatized into a computer friendly standardized shorthand,with all the romance of a yuppie texting on a Blackberry. (In rush hour, in his/her luxury SUV..while reading a blog…and Twittering..while drinking a tall, skinny, extra…oops, full circle..but that’s a different rant…LOL). I was in “my” Pikesville Starbucks, which is slated to close at the end of the month….{insert heartfelt sigh of despair}, on Monday discussing the ease or difficulty of learning a new language, as an adult vs. a child, and the various ways and their advantages and faults. (With your JT editor Neil, by the way). he has asked why have not applied for a job at Starbucks, since I almost live there anyway, and one of my reasons, among many others, was that at 53, learning the argot is too much hassle, these folks are actually tested on corporate designed, computer generated forms…..oy!!..I used to work at “Funks Democratic Coffee Spot” in Fells Point, before it closed up, this was a place where if the cups and saucers, or the silverware matched up, we felt that we had let you down with our conformity. Original art on the walls, Hand painted chairs and tables, quite often done in the middle of a meal, by a customer or employee whose muse suddenly appeared. We knew most of our regular patrons tastes and desires too, but we also knew there original and sometimes creative descriptions of their favorite beverages…‘let me have one of those, you know, the one with that syrup and the soy, oh yeah and not too bubbly’...it is amazing how many poets and writers can’t express a coherent thought without a pen or keyboard…yours truly included…LOL. If you really want to trip out the barrista next time, walk in and ask for, ‘A triple Albanian, organic, free trade, shade grown from Jamaican Blue Mountain beans grafted on to Icelandic Polar Bear fertilized a Peruvian Coca-Cacao-Cocoa hybrid, harvested by virgin, orphaned, torture free, non-violent, vegetarian pickers, in a non-exploitative democratic employee owned green ozone friendly, rainforest preserving, non-profit co-op, skinny, non-anorexic, anti-biotic free, free range, papaya-peanut butter-broccoli-liverwurst-licorice latte…..the whole coffe drinking world will ‘grind’ to a halt!!! LOL…(like thos Visa check card commercials, where someone wants to pay cash..)............ANYWAY….I enjoy your writing..hope you had a laugh….....Dave