As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I lost my best friend last Easter. She was the one person on earth I felt I couldn't afford to lose, and I still lost her. She was my favorite co-conspirator, my inspiration, my mentor, the baddest of my bad influence friends, my heart... She died of breast cancer at age 37.
You'd think that her illness and subsequent passing would make me a crusader for breast cancer charities. You'd think that I would be living a life absolutely awash in pink ribbons. I am not.
See, I'm too angry, still. Furious, actually. All throughout the month of October when the checkout person at the grocery store asked if I wanted to donate a dollar to breast cancer research, I always replied with a curt, "Nope." I didn't even have the courtesy to say "Not at this time, thank you." Just a dead-eyed "No." If someone had asked me why I couldn't spare a dollar, I would have said "Because they didn't cure it in time."
I know that's petty. I look forward to the day when I can shed the burden of my anger and engage with the people who are trying to eradicate the disease that took my heart away.
Yesterday, I was reading an article in a paper whose name rhymes with the Schmatlanta Schmjournal-Schmconstitution and I happened upon an article by a woman who longed to leave the city for a bucolic country life. She extolled the virtues of hanging her wash out to dry on a clothesline and meeting neighbors who talked about things other than traffic and their next promotion. Then, she proceeded to drag out the most well-worn trope of the frustrated city dweller. Starbucks.
I should say that she maligned fancy coffee in general or, rather, the people who drink fancy coffee. With barely veiled scorn, she ran on for sentences about the "soy chai latte, half-caff, venti mocha frappachino" crowd and how ridiculous it was to want coffee this complicated. Complicated! Horrors! Someone should tell her that the last time this kind of rant was funny was 1989. That was the year that "LA Story" was made, a movie which showcased the first AND last time ridiculous coffee ordering was actually found humorous by the public at large.
This poor, maltreated city woman wants to belly up to a diner counter where she could pay a quarter for a bottomless cup of regular joe and chat with the locals for hours on end. Here's the thing... There is no place in the world where you can get a cup of coffee for a quarter anymore. Also, getting a cup of coffee in the country means that she'll probably wind up in some greasy spoon with abomidable food and hideous service which is still in business because it's the only restaurant in town and the senior center buses shut-ins there to get a hot meal. Therefore, the locals she talks to will probably be a lady who thinks she's her daughter (and/or a pony) and the local crazy dude who was discharged from the home for the criminally insane (budget cuts) and walks around in a stained brown parka 365 days a year, muttering something to himself...something that sounds an awful lot like "Half-caff double venti soy chai latte." Oh, and that coffee? It'll taste like crotch and give her the permanent runs.
How do I know this? I'M FROM THAT TOWN! The incomperably sane residents of that town drive up to an hour to get a decent cup of coffee. Sometimes they bring a thermos and order a "grande" so that they'll have some to take home. They dry their clothes in dryers, just like anybody normal, and they drive 15 miles to eat at Applebees because it means they don't have to endure a shitty meal at the hands of the fry cook at the greasy spoon whose best dish, truth be told, is crystal meth. "Country" people are a myth. The folks that live in rural areas are just city people with backyards and more parking.
Don't worry about that columnist, by the way... I've got a double caff, venti skim soy chai shut the fuck up already ordered for her.