There’s a new barista at Sbux.
I pulled up the other day, cranking some NIN and wearing the Rock Star jacket. Baransky Barista took my order through the speaker (‘Venti Cr’me de Menthe non fat no whip mocha please’), with her snipey little smugness, repeating it back to me incorrectly (‘Venti Cinnamon Mocha?’ ‘No, Vente CR’ME DE MENTHE non FAT no Whip mocha.’ ‘Cr’me de menthe mocha with skim milk?’ ‘And no whip’ ‘(big dramatic sigh) Drive up please (under breath) youhighmaintenancebitca’), but when I got closer to the drive through, I saw a hairy arm in the window. A hairy MAN arm. What was the Man Arm doing in the Sbux window? There hasn’t been a man barista at this Sbux since the Matt Damon barista and the Viggo Mortensen barista disappeared. Perhaps the Baransky Barista ate them as part of her ritual to stay young and snipey. She does have the look of a praying mantis who lost the faith and became an atheist and now doesn’t know what to do with its hands.
Do bugs have hands? But I digress.
And I know that God doesn’t love me enough to have brought back Starbucks Guy.
I drove up to the window and was greeted by one very manly looking barista who will from this point be known as the Ed Harris Barista because he had the buzzed head and the piercing blue eyes thing going on. And because he dazzled me with his smile. Was there flirting? Oh yes. There may have been. And he put a cup condom on my Mocha, something the other baristas NEVER do. But then, do not underestimate the power of the Rock Star jacket and the penetrating thump of Trent Reznor. Oh no. Do not.
An aside here: I just love it when a man who might be thinning a little on the top decides to just go for it and buzzes the whole thing off. It’s just’ I don’t know’ growl. On some men. Like Jean Luc Picard. Never Anthony Edwards, though. But then, the last time I watched ER, they showed a close-up of Dr. Green’s groiny region in scrubs and it burned a spot of crotchal green on my eye for days. (shudder)
I forgot to mention’ I bought a Starbucks card. It was probably a bad move, because I treat it like a license to caffeinate. I’ve already blown $60 and I’ve only had it a month, but actually, it really just highlights how the little $4 trips to Sbux can add up over the weeks. Gah. But then, summer’s coming and I’ll be back to a Diet Coke in the morning anyway and can put that $4 a day into a nice money market account. So I can eventually buy stock in Sbux. It’s a shame spiral in a cup of latte, no foam.
Yesterday, I was slowly tensing up until you could have cracked a walnut between my shoulder blades when my fun Norwegian coworker looked up and said ‘Wow, it’s only 9 o’clock’. And all of the little projects that constantly multitask in my brain came to a screeching halt. What? I already had that much stress and I had only been there officially for an hour (I say ‘officially’ because I wake up at 5 am and usually get into the office by 7:15ish to get 45 minutes of extra time in. It means that I don’t have to stay an extra 45 minutes above and beyond the night hours I’m already working.) So I looked at my vacation accrual and even after visiting New Orleans and San Francisco, I still had almost three weeks left. 14.5 days, to be exact. That half-day was aching to be tidied up, so I announced that I would be leaving for lunch at noon and not coming back. And then I made an appointment for a massage before I could second think the scariness of Bad Naked.
You see, in order to be massaged, you must be naked.
Insert ‘Eeek!’ here.
But I kept thinking about Sundry’s comment that she is practically stripping her clothes before she gets into the room now and I bucked up like a good little cowgirl. And I made certain that my massage therapist was a girl.
Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
I managed to stave off the hyperventilation until Jayme actually brought me into the room, showed me where I should leave my clothes and then closed the door. Actually, I didn’t start to hyperventilate until I was lying naked on the table, staring at the thing you put your face into and thinking, wow, I’m lying on my gordo stomach and my boobies are squashed under me but you can totally see everything and now she’s going to be touching me and my naked parts under this sheet and slathering me with Aveda stuff and I’ll be naked and Fat Girl Table for One and hey, these are totally my boobies getting squished and THAT can’t be attractive.
So she made me take three deep breaths and started to massage my back and you know what? It was good. Really good. I stopped thinking about computer issues and connectivity problems at client sites and brand movements and company buyouts and formatting problems on reports and just started enjoying my back rubbed and how nice and warm it was. I didn’t know what she was doing, but I started to name the things in my head. Like the Twisty Twirly Ladder and Tickle Dancy Fingers and the Popping The Packing Bubbles and the Skooshy Skooshy with its backwards movement the Wooshy Wooshy. And then there was the movement I called The Pain Thumbs. Jayme was a very tiny little girl, but man, her thumbs were evil thumbs. Perhaps she was in some accident wherein her thumbs were accidentally chopped off and her donor thumbs were from a criminal mastermind. She had thumbs, oh yes. Thumbs of Pain.
I got to this point where everything became simple. Yes, I was naked. Yes, I was under this nubby blanket that for some reason reminded me of oatmeal, and I was all slick and smelling of sandalwood and there was Enya playing in the background, but here I was, wondering why I wasn’t really born a Princess so that I could enjoy this every day of my life and have discussions with my masseuse about whether or not I was going to accept the hand of the Prince of Some Regal Small But Important Country in marriage because it would make for an alliance between our peoples and he has offered up chest full of valuable jewels and OH MY GOD PAIN THUMBS!!! THE PAIN THUMBS! NO MORE PAIN THUMBS! And now we’re back with the Skooshy Skooshy. Phew. If I were a Princess, I would have a differently colored Jaguar for every day of the week, yes I would. And I would have them painted to coordinate with specific outfits. Yes. Very nice. Hmmmm.
Even with the evil thumbs, I tipped Jayme $20 because touching the fat lady’s naked body should get some sort of hazard pay. And thus I am a massage virgin no longer. I am thankful that I have a lifestyle which will allow me to get the occasional massage or I fear I would resort to standing on the street corner offering up my skillz like some kind of massage junkie, or worse, some sort of Paypal Button at the bottom of my page, urging you to donate to the Rub A Bix fund. Because seriously, it’s just that good.
Last night, as is his way, Esteban began to rub my shoulders after our goodnight kiss.
‘Wow, they really did a job on you.’ He said, finding no stress, no tight muscles, nothing but smooth languid silk.
‘Yes. Massage good. I feel so relaxedzzzzzzzzzzz.’
‘Man, I’m bummed. Normally, I feel like I’m helping you out a bit, making it better, but they totally took that away from me. God, you don’t even need me anymore!’
‘No, of course I do, sweetie. Sometimes there are pickle bottles that I can’t open. And also, you know, spiders.’
‘Great.’ He said, and coped a feel. ‘Wow, you really are relaxed. You just let me touch the good stuff without saying a thing.’
‘See? When Mama’s happy, everybody’s happy.’
And then we both said nothing because we were totally squicked out by the implication that I was his mother.
There’s a new contest at Quoted.
