The Starbucks Experience

$1.82

I can't help look at the receipt for a cup of joe I can make at home for 10 cents. My wife reminds me I'm paying for the experience. The Starbucks Experience.

Non-offensive music.

Cushy chairs.

Bubbling baristas.


I'm dropping my daughter off at camp, I've got 2 hours to kill. As much as I cringe over the receipt, it's the perfect place to go knock out some writing. The employees seem very happy. I mean, super happy. That's part of the Starbucks Experience. It came with my cup of medium roast joe with room for milk or cream.

The Starbuck Experience is heightened when a guy in line tells the guy behind him to go back to Jersey. They argue traffic. I try not to look. Sadly, it ends there. The Starbucks Experience does not include bare-knuckle fighting.

The baristas seem unperturbed by the near melee. Still super happy, I don't know how they do it. But then one barista asks another one - one with long pigtails - to throw a muffin or scone or chocolate-crammed cake funnel into a toaster.

Pig-tails says, "You want me to THROW it in, or PLACE it in?"

Barista number one says this. "Whatever."

I didn't think it was possible, but the Starbucks Experience just got better.