Morning After Coffee
I am sitting here with my back against the wall so I can take in everyone and everything. I am with my friend who I somehow convinced to wake up at 8:30 on a Sunday to go and do homework. The Starbucks is much emptier than I imagined, but there are about a million coffees lined up on the mobile ordering station. Maybe it’s the shame of the “morning after”. People don’t want to walk in to order their coffee. They just want to run in to pick it up. There are maybe ten people here as I am typing this, including the women at Starbucks. They are silently judging your coffee order that includes 3 different kinds of sugar at 9 am. A lot of the same people come in and out of the Starbucks. One of those being sorority girls, a stereotype I am not immune to at all. They come in with at least one other friend, whispering about the silly things they did drunk the night before. They are wearing an oversized hoodie, with pj shorts and a worn-out t-shirt that they almost definitely wore to bed the night before. Wearing last night’s makeup, looking around and hoping to not run into the guy they were dancing with last night. Now this might sound like a rude analysis and stereotype, but I only speak from watching and being in that exact scenario myself. Another type of person that comes in, is the boyfriend. He walks in alone, with his girlfriend either in the car or in his bed at home. He walks over to the mobile order queue and picks up the smallest hot/iced coffee imaginable, two sandwiches, and either a hot pink drink or the most complicated coffee order on Earth. I think this is sweet of these guys. They could very well drag their girlfriend along to pick up her own food, but they know she’s exhausted and will thank them a million times for getting their breakfast. Then there’s the people who have their life together. They come to the Starbucks, pick up their mobile order, sit down, whip open their computer, and are here for hours getting work done. Now I may look like one of these people right now but trust me when I say I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if it weren’t for the invention of Advil and coffee. Every so often someone will come in with their dog. Everyone’s faces light up, all the girls go “Awwwww”, to let the owner know they have a cute dog not an ugly dog. The dog is more excited than anyone to be at this Starbucks, tail wagging so hard they can’t walk straight, trying to make friends with the hungover kids walking by. And just as quickly as the dog appears, they are gone. Then the Starbucks workers, the real heroes of this story. Preparing for the influx of mobile orders coming in around noon, when the rest of the students wake up. I can’t blame them though, having nothing to wake up for on a Sunday is a blessing if I knew one. They are all up by noon, then talk with their friends for approximately 17 minutes before having the Starbucks conversation:
“Ugh I am so hungry.”
“Me too, but I don’t want to go to café.”
“We could mobile order Starbucks?”
“True, but I got Starbucks everyday this past week.”
“Okay, well I’m ordering right now.”
“Okay me too”
Then they walk to Starbucks, in their slippers and flip flops they threw on, their pajamas from last night, with a hoodie on top trying to fool everyone that they aren’t in pjs.
This Starbucks feels like a train station, people coming in and out quickly, with no time to spare. Grabbing their drink that is going to keep them awake the next two hours, and disappearing back to their room to not leave it until five pm to get dinner. This was my Sunday morning at Starbucks.
Who: a sleepy college student
Where: Cottrell Building Starbucks
When: mid-morning on a Sunday after a day of partying
What I’m drinking: a coffee from my home coffee machine that I am still trying to figure out how to work
