Starbucks Off the Freeway was featured in the short story section of the most recent edition of the Just Write Blog Carnival.  Visit them and give em some love!  If you are a visitor from Incurable Disease, we’d love to trade links with you.

Remember when the Starbucks barista called your name? This used to be part of the Starbucks experience. It made the patron feel a bit less partonly and somewhat known. This was the “experience” that built the empire. Along with a decent cup of coffee came a bit of connection to both the location and the franchise.

At this Starbucks just off the freeway the atmosphere is transient. You come and you go hopefully in rapid succession. When your beverage is ready instead of calling your name they blurt your order into the air like a stream of profanities. Instead of an assortment of comfortable chairs begging you to stay for a few minutes they have 2 to choose from both ostensisibly placed in the middle of the room, right where you’d walk if they weren’t there. Rather than asking you to sit in them, they seem rather to ask for you to look at them as you walk by. No one sits in them. Who wants to be a part of centerpiece? I like art. I don’t wish to become it.

People come and go quickly, and they are called by the name of the coffee they ordered less than one minute earlier. Then it is back to business. As they exit a glance is occasionally cast to the corners sheltering a few people who stopped by for coffee and a break. They are determined to be elsewhere or maybe just a more caffinated version of themselves.

I arrived just a minute ago and I hadn’t yet caught the “coffee-names” of most of the people sitting in the hardwood, non-inviting chairs. I eaves-drop. Bad Suit discussed with Friday Casual the implications of something they had not yet done. They nod a lot. “Financial observations… Assessments of the past quarter… In terms of seeing their operations and dry averages… Well represented…” Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.

Tall-Skinny Vanilla Latte leaves. She was short and fat. I imagined she ordered the drink on purpose, dreaming of what it might be like to be refered to as “Tall and Skinny”

This place designed around connection has become just another stop in the daily patterns of those who drive by this collection of businesses. I wish a pair of lovers would come in and sit in the centerpiece chairs and start making out to disrupt this sterility. A yoga class, prayer meeting or an AA meeting, something really needs to invade this afternoon. Some connection with someone else needs to interrupt. Some courtesy. Something polite. Something from the heart, beyond the CD playing in the background.

The newest couple gather around a laptop shrine and worship some local god of wealth. I had great hope for them when they entered and sat. Turns out they are negotiating a contract of some sort. I was hoping they might be sharing pictures of the family vacation.

Its no wonder we can disprove God, as we’ve gotten so good at ignoring his image in others. Theology is pretty easy to dismiss when created beings become Tall Skinny Latte as opposed to Jan Stevens or Virginia Zito. Makes me want to stand up and shake hands at the entrance, to tell you the truth.

“Hey Jan, Virginia – God knows your name. And if you’d stop running out the door I’d love to tell you mine. Tell me about yourself. You have to meet my wife and kids. Meet my friend Bob, a.k.a. Caramel Mocha. We should have cheesecake. Or celebrate the eucharist.”

But we settle for our coffee names, and I’m too introverted to be a door greeter. I remain stationary, while you return to the freeway to catch your next important something. I wish I could say, “Your loss,” but it’s mine too. If this keeps up for the rest of the afternoon I’m bound to become Large Unflavored Capuccino. Of course small is called large and large is called “Venti,” which feels almost like a name. I’m sure someone is named Venti somewhere and that guy gets his name called at Starbucks all day long. I like to be called Ryan.

We all shuffle by one another and we know no one else. I’ll leave pretending to have met someone who I assume to be named Jan or Virginia. No one more connected that when we entered. We’re just “leavers.” We haven’t smiled enough, but some of us have managed to accomplish something.

Bad Suit and Friday Casual pack up their charts, numbers and a cell phone that rings like a symphony that could tame a jungle cat, but God forbid they share an interest in each other’s kids. We pretend this is how it is supposed to be. Business and busyness win uncontested victories. God is dead and we are alone. Coltrane tries to convince us otherwise from inside a muted speaker. Nobody pays too much attention.

I’ve waited for most of an afternoon to overhear the words, “Remember when…” To hear waves of laughter. To see someone appreciate the imprint of God on another human being. So far nothing, and I have somewhere I need to be. Unfortunately just like everyone else.