So I'll write another song about the darkness...

Ok, my commitment to you, faithful readers, is to NOT make this blog all about stupid things that happen at Starbucks.  But, I do have one more thing on my mind before I make good on that. Please bear with me.

This morning, I woke up and was barely able to get out of bed, probably because my boss advised that I take two hits of melatonin before going to sleep.  The reason we were even talking about it is because he was on a hilarious little rant about how he went to a sleep clinic that involved him sleeping in a hospital in pajamas with probes on his head, paying something like $3,000 (although insurance picked most of it up), and then being told to take melatonin if he can’t sleep.

I was commenting that I really don’t mind my insomnia, because I spend most of the night in and out of consciousness, listening to podcasts.  The night is like a refreshing cross between a vacation and college.

So I dragged myself out of bed and into the commuting chair, and decided that I should reward myself for all of this effort by stopping at Starbucks.  Why I continue to view this as a potential reward is one of the great mysteries, but I‘ve listened to a podcast about it, and would like to report that interest remains high when the subject never knows whether they’ll get the cheese or the shock.

So anyway, I haven’t stopped at this particular Starbucks since this went down. 

I pull into the gigantic empty parking lot, and am traveling across it at what I would consider to be a normal speed for the conditions:  not as slowly as I’d go if there were other souls about, walking and driving, but not quite freeway speed.  A car begins to tailgate me.

I pull into the one remaining parking spot in front of the coffee shop, and the tailgater pulls in really fast, right next to me, in a spot that’s marked with a picture of a wheelchair.  He actually does a shoddy parking job, and if I had drawn a picture last week, it would apply here too, because he crosses the line and is actually taking up two parking spots, both with the picture of the wheelchair.  There are about a thousand empty parking spots, but they’re at least 15 feet further from the store than the two that he’s claimed.

I’m irritated already, and it’s only 5:35 a.m.  I get out of my car, which is slightly closer to the store than his car, but he hurries out of his vehicle and jogs, yes, I said jogs, to get ahead of me. I’m well aware that people sometimes have disabilities that wouldn’t be obvious, and may need to park close for some reason that I wouldn’t know about by looking at the person.  I’m trying to keep this in mind, but the jogging makes it hard to believe.  Oh, and if you’re wondering about him, he looks to be in his late 50’s, in business casual type attire.

I pick up my own pace, and I arrive at the door about a second behind him.  This is the circumstance when a courteous human might offer to hold the door for the other person, and that other person, if also courteous, would either accept graciously, or accept and then let the other person still get in line ahead of them.  Instead, he releases the door in my face.  I open the door, and stand in line behind him.  The only other patrons at this time of day are a group of cops, and he goes over to schmooze with them while he’s waiting for his drink, which happens to be a caramel macchiato with non-fat milk and extra foam. 

I would like to think I get bonus points for not asking the cops, while he was standing there, what the rules are on the parking spots with the picture of the wheelchair.  I would also like bonus points again for drinking black drip coffee, but I realize there are limits to the bonus thing, and probably self-inflicted deprivation that makes no point to anyone doesn't really lead directly to point accrual.

I’m making all of these new rules for myself, including stopping playing solitaire on the computer (no, that’s not a metaphor for anything, just the actual game), and writing more, and writing less about irritating people, so I hope to be posting a little more frequently than I have been recently.  I might even write a bit about Nicaragua, if I can remember back that far.