Ode to the Asshole Starbucks Guy
2010 February 21
Okay. So if I’m sitting in a Starbucks, holed up IN THE CORNER with my laptop — brow furrowed in intense, I’ll-eventually-need-Botox-screw-you concentration – obviously, quite obviously, I don’t want company. Communication of any kind. My angry black leather jacket and body language, in any way you Star Magazine slice it, reads LEAVE ME ALONE.
But no. As I’m in the middle of Photoshopping the graphic for my newest entrepreneurial venture — and only halfway through the coffee that will eventually render me remotely civil to the rest of Starbucks kind — some rejected extra from the 80s version of Gulliver’s Travels saunters up.
My eyes barely flicker from the toolkit of CS4. Go. Away. Asshole. I silently chant to myself.
Keep in mind The Boyfriend is presently out shooting someone (fashion versus killing spree), and I have this woman’s crap around the Starbucks table and my feet. You actually had to STEP OVER half of the contents of her Studio apartment to access the other chair.
Gulliver stands there for a good five minutes, shifting his weight indecisively and occasionally clearing his flem-filled throat. Finally, just as I’m in the middle of a one-pixel-wide effort to remove an under-eye bag, he speaks.
“Eafreuahm. Can I… fish, sit?”
What the fuuuuck, I silently yell at myself. I look up. Once, and briefly. ”Uh…”
Manhattan Ashley kicks in. I continue working.
He keeps shifting.
“Menh… yes! May I sit? I— fish.”
I’m so confused at the antics of this odd human being that I look up, again, and stare at him in the face.
“Sure.” I stated, flatly. Nobody sensical would have sat. I might as well have said “I’m going to murder you in your sleep with a fork.”
He bobbed his head, taking a large step over the three pieces of luggage that formed a moat around my solace. Nearly tripping on a large blue hat box, he sat.
He looked at me. I glared back at him, and — without blinking — slowly slid my computer toward me with only my forefingers.
“You don’t — ehaiifahg (cough) — have to mouv’it.”
I didn’t answer. I looked down, and continued working. I allowed my fingers to ram the keyboard with every stroke.
None of the hints worked. He continued sitting there for THREE HOURS, attempting to make small talk to the front of my head as I silently ignored him, built things in PHP, and wrote some stuff. I went through four Green Teas (did you know Starbucks now charges you $2.45 for a teabag and WATER?!) before I finally gave up and called The Boyfriend.
The shoot promptly ended. The Boyfriend came to the rescue, his client in tow. She carefully extracted her hat box from beneath Gulliver’s knobby (still immobile) legs.
It wasn’t until I got up to go to the bathroom, leaving The Boyfriend and Boyfriend’s Client standing over the table — that the guy finally put down his crossword, slowly ripped the black and white box parts from the paper — and placed them over my open laptop. His number was scrawled in each box. Roses littered the margins.
He then got up, and left.
Jesus. If I knew I’d attract men by killing them slowly with my mind while sipping overpriced Chai, I’d have stayed single for longer.
Time for a cup of wine.
– Ashley Avis
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AAH he sounds annoying as hell! Sorry about that. It’s funny….on a messageboard that I frequent, some of the girls talk about having “Resting Bitch Face” (LOL) and apparently if you have this sort of look, it *usually* keeps unwanted strangers away. Emphasis on usually – because apparently it doesn’t always work!
I know that I don’t have RBF because I always get approaced for help, directions, etc. Not that I mind….I’m glad to help, as long as it’s brief and it’s not someone crazy!!!
Ew. Did he really say … fish at the end of each haphazard statement? That’s gross.