Starbucks, 9:32 p.m. – The ‘Anti-Kitty-Committee’ is out in force tonight

I’m trying out a new Starbucks tonight. I like the chairs. I mean, I REALLY like the chairs.

This is one of those Starbucks decorated in the retro-mod style, with the earth tones and the cocoa-colored stools and the raspberry faux-leather high-backed stools that spin around and the big chocolate leather easy chairs. YUMMALICIOUS!

It is also apparently a “no-merchandise” Starbucks, as I learned on my last visit – so there is only one stand of coffee, a tiny basket of the coffee of the week and a wall of ground coffee. No mugs, no huge racks of CDs, no screaming promos for the iTunes single of the week. No. Not even the free iTunes single giveaways. I’m almost crushed.

This Starbucks also stays open until 11 p.m. on weeknights, later than any other one in the city – and midnight on weekends – a fortuitous circumstance I am sure is owed to the near proximity to the nearby movie theater. If only it were not so crowded with screaming teen brats wearing next to nothing.

Do they really let kids out of the house wearing so little nowadays? I just saw more of a teen girl’s ass than I ever wanted to. She was wearing short-shorts that would have made Catherine Bach run for a cover-up and a shirt that read “Anti-Kitty-Committee.” Pair this with knee-high black socks and plaid Vans and you have quite the ironic hipster bad-fashion statement.

The bratty children have gone now. They’ve swept up their tall chocolate chip frappucinnos and flapped out the door – taking their proto-homosexual floppy-haired blonde emo boy toy with them. Fashion-forward that one was – kept pushing up the sleeves on his brown American Eagle sweater and trying to toss the locks out of his face.

The baristas are not even making an effort to look busy. There are five of them and they are lolling about by the drive-thru window just chatting it up. Yakkety-yakkety-yakkety.

I can’t hear them over this crappy mid-tempo something, although every now and again the occasional snappy phrase floats through. “What did I do Danny?” Um, not your job, obviously.

We have a customer now. Our winner is a bored-looking twenty-something in blue jeans and a white windbreaker from some tourist trap. She’s got a fake Coach purse slung on her shoulder and a nasty scowl planted across her lips.

I wonder what crawled up in her and died. Maybe it is her pancake makeup causing facial freeze. Yeesh. You’d think as much as she spends at a makeup counter someone would show her how to apply it correctly.

Oh. It gets better. The boyfriend is here. He’s in plain faded blue jeans and a gray tee. They both have worn-out tennis shoes on. They both look so “average.”

Just got a good look at the jacket. I pegged the tourist trap correctly. Like I said – Cancun. Ok. If you really are a ‘world traveler,’ you don’t have to advertise that you went to the Mexican version of Branson. Capische?

Grande white mocha and grande no whip latte. Predictable and boring. I bet they do it in the missionary position. Actually, I take that back. She looks like a total hooker. I bet she puts on a pair of cowboy boots and some spurs, mounts up in reverse cowgirl and goes to town.

Anywhoo. They’re gone.

It just hit me that this is the largest Starbucks I’ve ever been in. I don’t know if that is because it is minus all the crap that is normally in a Starbucks or if it is just physically larger. Either way, it is a nice change. It feels … spacious … and light and airy and open.

OK. This place is really dead. One of the baristas has taken off his apron. He’s just slumped in one of the easy chairs in the back, staring off into space. He’s already smoke two ciggies in the last ten minutes. I wonder if Seattle corporate knows about this?

Finally some good tunes going on the radio. A tinkling jazz piano riff. This, I can rock out with. There’s also a fresh pot of coffee brewing. I guess they have to do a pot on the hour, every hour. Whatever today’s blend is, it sure smells good. That’s the timer.

I just asked. Tonight’s blend is Italian roast.

My time is up. Thank you.