This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here. I should be back in school not waiting in this long, horrible lineup! This is not a Honeycomb Lavender Frappuccino! It is a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino! It is an abomination! Yet in spite of your laziness and incompetence, you come to me for hope, hope that this is the right order? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your flat, uninspired service. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m young. I have energy. But people are suffering under your ineptitude. They are exhausted. They need their caffeine, and without it entire PowerPoint presentations are collapsing. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of good coffee and prompt service. How dare you!
And look! You have written Scoldilocks on my coffee container! You think this is funny? There is no time for funny business! Funny business shall be our death! You disgust me with your jokes while we suffer!
But no matter how sad and angry I am, I want you to know that I will never give up, I will have my Honeycomb Lavender Frappuccino, even as you betray me! The eyes of all future coffee drinkers are upon you, and if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. We will never forgive you and you will burn in your own damnation!
]]>An acquaintance of mine recently posted this on her wall:
“MFA thesis defended!”
These are the comments that followed:
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Congratulations!
Way to go, Sloan!!
You did it, you’re the best!!xoxo
Awesome. Just awesome.
It must feel great to accomplish something so useful!
Congratudonlences!
That’s great, hopefully the debt won’t be too crippling!
You’re going to be a poet, I hope! A nation really can’t have too many of them!
That’s eight years spent in academia that you can be damn proud of!
So. Fucking. Brave.
Very sorry to hear this. WHAT NOW???? At least your mother died believing that you’d never finish that degree!
Thank God somebody is finally going to give some attention to Gender Dichotomies in the Kitchen: Feminine and Masculine Qualities of Spaces and Artifacts as exhibited in Queer literature of the 1990’s! It’s been a long time coming! You rawk, Sloan!
Idiot.
Hopefully after all those years you committed to that institution, you have a good relationship with them and they might offer you a job as a diversity officer or something!
Sloan, you have just taken your Blog to the next level!
So, so, so sorry to hear this. Big hugz!!
My ex works at the Starbucks on College and University, and I am sure he can get you a job there while you write your novel. Private message me.
Fantastic news! You must be super proud! See you at the Slam Poetry workshop on Sunday!
First of all, before I write my message, I want to thank Mother Earth for all the resources that she allows us to use, and honour all First Nation, Métis and Inuit people whose land we settlers now stand upon. We ask your forgiveness. YOU ARE THE BEST, SLOAN, YOU MUST BE SO PROUD!!
Have you told your psychiatrist yet?
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Rachelle: Well, how do you know that?
Rachelle: No.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: She pretended to retch?
Rachelle: Because you told her you liked her sneakers?
Rachelle: That is pretty extreme.
Rachelle: Was this one of the sorority girls who lives down the street?
Rachelle: The one who looks like Jennifer Lawrence?
Rachelle: I thought so.
Rachelle: And did you tell her this in a way that sounded like what you really meant was that you wanted to see her naked?
Rachelle: I see.
Rachelle: Yes, of course.
Rachelle: Look, I know you’re just trying to generate some light in this crazy, angry world, Pickle, I get that!
Rachelle: And sure, somebody has to help scantily clad sorority girls who are 30 years younger than you, feel like they’re making the right fashion choices.
Rachelle: Imagine if every time one of them passed by a much, much, much older man and he didn’t say something about what they were wearing? What would happen then? Their self-esteem might just crater and then who knows what might happen?! It could be catastrophic!
Rachelle: I’m not being sarcastic.
Rachelle: No, I’m not.
Rachelle: Nope.
Rachelle: Jesus Pickle, OF COURSE I’m being sarcastic.
Rachelle: It’s amazing to me how slow you are to pick-up on sarcasm!
Rachelle: Like at the park when that woman was complimenting how high you could go on the swings?
Rachelle: That was sarcasm.
Rachelle: And at the drum circle, when that man said that you “displayed a beautiful mastery over movement?”
Rachelle: That was sarcasm, too.
Rachelle: Oh honey, I’m sorry.
Rachelle: I am.
Rachelle: You’re right, sarcasm truly is the lowest form of humour.
Rachelle: Look, it’s taking me longer than I thought here, do you mind picking Jones up from daycare?
Rachelle: Oh, I didn’t realize your group was meeting tonight.
Rachelle: I think it’s sweet that you guys get together and play Dungeons and Drama every month! Do you think you could let Jones join in? He’d love to dress up as Spiderman for it!
Rachelle: Dungeons and Dragons?
Rachelle: Oh, I always thought it was Dungeons and Drama.
Rachelle: I don’t know, I guess because of all the screaming and Lord of the Rings languages. Just seemed really dramatic.
Rachelle: Like an even nerdier version of Improv dramatic.
Rachelle: Whatever.
Rachelle: Okay, I get it.
Rachelle: It’s not a children’s game.
Rachelle: Very sophisticated. Very strategic. Good leadership training.
Rachelle: I’m surprised corporations like Google and Starbucks don’t use it as a training tool for their employees.
Rachelle: It really is a journey of discovery, isn’t it, Pickle?
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: That was about 98% sarcastic.
Rachelle: Okay, don’t worry about it. I’ll pick Jones up, and you, my little Dragonborn Sorcerer, you have a great time playing Dungeons and Diggers! xox
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However, I was curious to see how it might actually unfold in the real world and so I went out to a bunch of Starbuck’s in the Toronto area and tried to engage the staff in conversations about race.
Starbucks
10 Dundas Street East
8:30 pm
Me: Hi.
Barista: Hi.
Me: Are you a fan of the TV show Empire?
Barista: Don’t think I know that one.
Me: Oh. Well, it has an all black cast. Not a single white person on it. After a few episodes you don’t even notice how weird that is. It says a lot about race, I think, and the gritty world of Hip Hop. Very topical considering Ferguson and everything.
Barista: You seem very authentically informed.
Me: Well, I’m a part of Black Twitter, so I feel pretty plugged in.
Barista: I see. What can I get you?
Me: Decaf green tea. Grande.
Barista: I bet you like being white, don’t you?
Me: I don’t really see race.
Starbucks
407 Yonge Street
11:30 am
Me: Hey, anyone interested in rapping about race?
Barista: (foams milk)
Me: (Turning around and facing the customers in the lineup behind me) Anyone?
Guy with an eye patch: This might not be “politically correct” or anything, but I hate the Irish.
Me: Really, the Irish? But they have Leprechauns!
Guy with an eye patch: Exactly, Leprechauns are just about the creepiest thing in the world.
Me: What happened, did you lose your eye to a Leprechaun?
Guy with an eye patch: No, I lost it in a fire. The Irish also cheat at cards, and on their husbands.
Girl in denim jacket: And I have to add that the Muzzies got no business taking over this country, if they want to live here, they should damn well dress like everyone else, am I right?
Me: Hey, this is great, now we’re really starting to get into the hard stuff! How about you, (pointing at a woman on her phone) what do you think?
Woman on her phone: (Gives me the finger)
Me: (To Barista) People are still very uncomfortable talking about race. It’s a real shame, because as painful as it is, we really have so much to learn from one another. We need to be brave.
Barista: You do know that the campaign isn’t taking place in Canada, right?
Starbucks
585 University Avenue
2:00 pm
Me: (To Barista) So, who is your favourite black actor or actress? Supermodels count.
Barista: Why are you asking me this?
Me: I’m trying to start a dialogue about race. I want to find out about your lived experience. Have you ever written a letter to a black celebrity, and if so, was it a hate letter or a love letter?
Barista: It’s never occurred to me to write a celebrity a letter.
Me: Any celebrity, or just black celebrities in particular?
Barista: Any celebrity.
Me: Weird. Not even Pam Grier??
Barista: Look, I got to keep the line moving here, are you going to take that cookie or not?
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I figured this out, too little, too late, but I figured it out. And so we stopped communicating, and it was in those spaces that I imagined her, and then she just appeared, as if conjured. Her grandmother’s ring on her left hand, the powder blue jacket that was bunched in the middle, her hair not quite the way she meant it to be for a Saturday night. She saw me sitting there in the corner of the bar and she did not know what to do. A current ran through her body and she panicked, I think. I called out her name and she looked at me like I was a ghost. I was a ghost. She wanted movement, she wanted to be running through a field or diving off a cliff, she wanted the plane to be landing in a new city, and the guy she was with, gesturing to the open table just a few over from where I was seated, he had no idea who I was or what my presence might mean for his unfolding evening.
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