I went to a Starbucks for coffee and pastry this morning because the boy behind the counter at the bakery I usually go to has developed the not unwelcome habit of grazing my hand with his fingers when he returns my change, and I don’t want to make the poor thing sick. It’s not that I wanted to make the people working at Starbucks sick - I was just fairly confident they’d been made to watch a corporate video instructing them to avoid the dangers of hand grazing.

There was a line at Starbucks, and when it moved forward the wench in front of me opted not to step up. She was exuding this "I’ll move when I damn well please" vibe, and since I was in the mood to seethe rather than 1) politely ask her to stop blocking the view of the pastry case so I could figure out what I wanted before it was my turn to order, or 2) knock her skinny little ass out of the way, I just stood there, well, seething. I thought, "What kind of pathetic life do you have that you need to play power games in line at Starbucks?"

When she got up to the counter and ordered a "tall doppio half-decaf extra hot latte, no, wait, dry cappuccino" my pretentiously unpretentious two syllable coffee order and I shared a snotty, "Of course."

And then Miss Dry Cappuccino went behind the counter, and after a split second of confusion when I suspected she was going to show them the right way to make a tall-doppio-half-decaf-extra-hot-latte-no-wait-dry-cappuccino, I realized that she worked there.

And then her petty act of passive aggression against the people in line at Starbucks made perfect sense.

Anybody know where I can get a "Sorry I Developed a Silent Hatred for You While We Stood in Line Together" greeting card?

Oh, shit - I'm supposed to be writing a novel right now.