New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Starbucks, the nation's largest coffee-shop chain, continued its rapid expansion Tuesday, opening its newest location in the men's room of an existing Starbucks.
Starbuck's logo
"Coffee lovers just can't stand being far from their favorite Starbucks gourmet blends," said Chris Tuttle, Starbucks vice-president of franchising. "Now, people can enjoy a delicious Frappuccino or espresso just about any time they please, even while defecating."
The new men's-room-based Starbucks, the coffee giant's 1,531st U.S. location, will be open to both men and women when not "in use." In addition to offering specialty coffees from around the world, it will serve freshly baked pastries, Italian pannini sandwiches and soups, as well as the rest room's usual selection of toilet paper and soap.
"This is a great addition," said Jonathan Connolly, a Boston-area banker who tried out the new Starbucks Tuesday. "I was enjoying my usual triple mocha latté in the main Starbucks, and I had to go to the bathroom, where three people were in line to use the stalls. The wait might have been a problem, but, to my great pleasure, there was another Starbucks right there, ready to serve me more delicious coffee. And the baristas were helpful and courteous."
Connolly added that after he finished drinking his coffee and using the bathroom, he stayed for a poetry reading near the urinals.
"I was a little bit worried about the new restaurant cutting into our business," said Dave Grobelkowski, manager of the original Starbucks. "But the only people going there are ones who have already purchased items from us anyway. And if we run out of stirrers or cream, we can just go to the bathroom and borrow some."
According to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, the new location represents the beginning of a long-term expansion plan.
"Eventually, Starbucks rest rooms everywhere will sell coffee," Schultz said. "But that ambitious scheme is at least five years down the road. In the meantime, we plan to open an additional location in this Starbucks' ladies' room within months, and are already drafting plans for a fourth restaurant along the corridor leading from the main seating area to the rest rooms. At some point a 'Star-bucks Express' window will eventually open in the walk-in closet of the men's room Starbucks."
"Drink our coffee," Schultz said. "Drink it."
This is a real note left for someone who parked...well as you can see in two spaces.
I know it's been a while and I've had so many profound and poetic life observations it became almost too hard to pick which one to write about. So I'm just going to jump in. I narrowed it down to butts and doughnuts but just couldn't decide which one was more fascinating so I'm going to talk to you a little about both. First, my butt. About 6 months ago I got a splinter in my ass at the car wash sitting on a wooden bench waiting for my car. You may wonder how that could happen. Well let me tell you it not only is possible, it happened to me and I have the giant wooden stake lodged deep in my fleshy backside to prove it. So I come home and ask my dear wife if she would get a flashlight and her glasses and see if she can manhandle the monster of all car wash splinter out of my ass. She just stares at me. Really, can you believe that? There was no, "Oh, honey, that must be really painful. Why don't you pull your pants down and go lie face down on the bed and I'll see if I can't make it all better. I'll get the flashlight and my glasses." Now you may be asking why the flashlight. Well, it's dark in our bedroom, okay? So she's just staring at me and I repeat myself. "Babe, I have a splinter in my butt and I want you to pull it."
This time she says, "It'll be okay."
Now what the hell is that supposed to mean? It'll be okay. When? In ten years? After Bush is out of office? When the whole planet finally goes solar? What the hell is she talking about? She walks away and cracks open a beer or calls her masseuse to set up a full body massage or flosses or God only knows what other important thing she had to do that minute that was way more urgent then my ass...so off she goes.
So I trot off to Toluca Lake Health Center, where every actor goes when he gets a nose bleed or a splinter, and I pay my co-pay, fill out the forms and repeat to everybody and his brother what's wrong.
"So, what's the problem, Mr. Macdonald?"
"I have a splinter in my butt."
"In your butt?
"Yes in my butt. I have a splinter in my butt."
"In your butt" the nurse says.
Yes, in my butt...splinter in my butt splinter in butt...how many frickin' times am I gong to have to say those ridiculous words?
Then I notice that she's just staring at me like my wife did. "Well," I say. "Is there a problem?"
"No," she says. "Just figuring out how to explain that in writing to the doctor."
Write down I have a fucking splinter in my butt. What the hell is wrong with everybody?
"Well, how long has the object been in your anus, Mr Macdonald?"
"It's not an object! And it's not in my anus, Ma'am, it's a splinter and it's in my butt!"
I could go on but I don't want to tramatize you like I was.
So to make a short story long, I finally see the doctor. I bend over, and she says, "I don't see anything."
"What do you mean, you don't see anything? Can't you feel that huge bump?"
"I do feel a pimple here."
"Oh, for Christ's sake! That's not a pimple. Don't you think I know the difference between a pimple and a piece of wood stuck in my ass?"
"Mr. Macdonald, I'm not about to get my scapel and go rooting around for imaginary things that might not even be there."
"But it is there! Don't you feel it!? That's a welt the size of a small plum." C'mon, Doc, show a man some love and slice me open.
"Like I said, I'm not performing surgery on a pimple."
So she snaps off her latex glove and leaves me sitting there cold and bent over like some piece of meat, like some actor-plaything who doesn't know any better than to bother really important people with his pimply ass.
I tried to hold my head high as I walked out of her office past all the other sick and lame out-of-work actors. I smiled and gave a thumbs up to someone who looked like Scott Baio. He pretended not to see me and I pretended I wasn't giving anyone the thumbs up sign, rather I was stretching my thumb, which I do from time to time. I made it down to my car, tipped the valet a dollar, then felt bad and gave him a handful of change and an old Eagles CD I was about to throw out. And as I pulled out on to Riverside Drive it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had nowhere I had to be and I still had a huge splinter in my ass. Now this is where we get to the doughnuts but I'm afraid it will have to wait until next time.
If you have a kid in preschool or grade school, high school, scouts, sports, whatever, you probably, as we do, have to contend with a shitload of fundraising activities. Sellathons, jogathons, walkathons, bookathons, spring carnival, cookie dough sales...(drum roll) the ubiquitous silent auction etc . And there's no way around it, I know, you know, we all know. So Jim and I got to talking about what hot item really might sell, create a stir, pull in some real cashola. And we thought, well, what about a calendar, you know, "Moms of such-and-such School"? Nothing X-rated or offensive, just, like, moms in bikinis doing...whatever. We brought the idea to a couple working mom friends. They laughed, then suggested a 'Dads of same-such-school' calendar. Even better idea. Which got us to thinking about, you know, layout...format. January: Jet Propulsion Lab dad (our kids go to school in Pasadena) in boxers with a bunsen burner, February: Straight-laced-suit lawyer dad in a Speedo and suspenders in a courtroom diorama, March: Real Estate dad meeting clients at a house...waving, naked-but-tastefully-hidden-from-the-hips-down behind his Toyota Prius--and as long as we're talking tasteful--photographer dad with his Sony cam hanging at exactly groin length (and nothin' else), writer dad sitting at a desk or in a coffee shop wearing only his laptop. Come on, go with it. Try just planning it with a friend at your kid's school next time the annoying and mundane starts dragging you down, making you cranky. You'll come up with images for days that will, at least, make you laugh aloud on the way to yet another fundraising extravaganza.
I can't stop staring at my tomato plants. They had better grow. They had better freakin' not die.
Yes, I officially joined the ranks of amateurs who plant vegetable gardens. I thought I had a few decades before hitting this milestone, but never had I felt the urge so strongly as I did this spring. And it seemed out of nowhere. Was it a rite of passage? A need to nurture (MORE)? Organic getting too pricey? A chemical imbalance on my part? I wanted a garden and I wanted it now. Took a weekend to build up the soil with Jim so that it didn't resemble a rock quarry and then this past Sunday was PLANTING DAY. The kids wanted $75 lemon trees and strawberries (out of season) and banana plants, but since we were only talking about a $50 budget (total) and 50 square feet of space, I stuck to my tomato guns (peppered with basil, mint, spearmint and two small raspberry plants).
I needed to change into 'gardening attire' but, frankly, haven't worn shorts in twenty years and never found hats with practical brims very flattering. I guess I thought I would take a spin in my bedroom, like Superman in the phone booth, and emerge looking something like Jessica Tandy in crisp cotton pastels with a chiffon scarf securing the perfect straw hat to my head. I didn't even come close. In army pants, black boots, long-sleeved black tee shirt and baseball cap, I looked more like someone at machine gun practice. But it didn't matter. The afternoon was not too hot, the earth was rich and ready, the plants were hardy and by the end of the day it was done.
Excuse me. I have to go check on my plants. My plants. Again. --K
Following the edict that my friend Meg issued about playdates for her ten year old daughter, in that they are for 'play' not 'electronics,' I issued the same for my son's playdate today. I think I actually added, "Now leave me alone. You're old enough to figure out what to do."
"Can we use these cigarettes?"
"What cigarettes? NO! You can't use those cigarettes. Your dad's friend left those cigarettes when he was visiting. I'm getting rid of them. Now GO!"
"Can we paint the door?"
"NO."
"Can we use the empty beer bottles?"
"NO."
Two boys. A backyard. Twenty-seven boxes of baking soda (that my son has been stocking away for a vinegar and arm-n-hammer experiments). Red food coloring from the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets that I had no idea was there.
Our black dog is now white, the backyard looks like it's experienced a cocaine explosion, the boys' arms are red to their elbows, there are ghostly footprints down the hallway and now they are hosing each other off. I'm squelching the urge to yell, "Okay, COME ON IN AND PLAY VIDEO GAMES NOW."
Letting go, now. --K
Happy May Day.
I'm starting to think that this 'reality' thing is going to be a theme with me.
I pick up my six year old after school with her 'date' for the afternoon, a very quiet, sweet little guy, Danny, also in Kindergarten. First thing A says to me is "I told Danny how we usually fly home, Mom. Okay? Right?" Danny giggles. "Right, Mom? We usually fly so could we just do it?"
This is where I usually grapple with the reality thing. "Fly? In the sky? You mean in this car?"
"Yeah. Remember?"
"Right. Okay. Only I just saw a policeman on a motorcycle and I think he's giving out tickets to all the flying cars today."
"Mom. We're flying over him. Remember? He won't catch us." She says in a voice much too dry for someone her age (Also her assurance that the cop won't catch us could really disturb me if I let it)
I drive about a mile when A says, "So when are we going to fly?"
"We just did. Didn't you see it? We were going so fast. Danny saw it, right Danny?
Danny giggles again, looks from me to A and back to me again, then says, tentatively, "Yeah."
"Mom, we're still in the sky. You see? We're surrounded by clouds. You see, Danny? I told you so."
Now I'm wondering how fucked up Danny is going to think this all is. What will he tell his parents, I wonder. Do his parents do as much kidding and storytelling as we do? Does he still believe in Santa Claus or is his family one of those that stresses the importance of reality vs. fantasy after the age of three? On one hand I secretly hope that my daughter's or son's imagination will continue to soar and give way to some lucrative rewarding career in the arts or scientific invention, and on the other hand I wonder, "Will my daughter's 'stories' morph in ten years into "that's not my bong, Mom. Amy left it here." See? I'm always getting ahead of myself. Relax, I whisper aloud. Relax, Karen. It's just a flying car for Chrissake.
