That Time When The Gals at Starbucks Saved My Life

You never know who, where, or what will save you.

“The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.”

― Salvador Dali

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“It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.”

― William Styron

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“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice.”

― Meister Eckhart

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It’s true—the gals at the local Starbucks saved my life.

I’m in trouble now, aren’t I?

Damn.

It’s not gals, is it? No, definitely not gals.

Girls?

Is that right?

No…young ladies?

Err, um, maybe young women?

C’mon, give me a break. I’m old(er), not up on the current terminology, and I’m trying here.

What I do know is this: of the employees who work at the Starbucks around the corner from my house, 95% appear to be 20-something females, in the classic sense, and with names like Mia, Taylor, Darcy, Megan, Michelle, and so on, I think I’m on solid ground here.

Okay, let’s try again.

The group of humans at my local Starbucks saved me.

Hmmm…

Nope. That doesn’t work.

How about the kids?

They’re all kids, objectively and mathematically so, given that I’m probably older than their parents—and technically could be a grandparent to one or more of them.

So yeah, let’s go with that.

The kids at my local Starbucks saved my life.

And it’s a particularly odd place to find salvation from a psychotic break—especially given my problematic history with coffee.

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I have few memories of 21061 Barbados Circle, the house where I was born, which is understandable since I only lived there until age four.

I remember two Chinese guardian lions—my father called them foo dogs—perched atop marble pedestals at the end of our street. Carved from red alabaster, with fiery eyes and sinister poses, they stood six feet high and scared me so much I avoided riding my bike in the cul-de-sac.

I remember Jerry Patch, our next-door neighbor, who enclosed his front yard with weathered redwood planks and turned it into a Japanese garden. Decorated with little cement pagodas and wooden bridges, under which a series of rivulets flowed into a tiny pond stocked with dwarf koi fish, all that was missing was a sign reading: Hole-in-one gets you free beverage of your choice—small size only.

What a strange experience Jerry’s transition from house to driveway must have been.

First, he’s a normal-sized man, then, suddenly a giant, and, just as quickly, reduced back to mortal status.

I’ve always suspected that a latent Destroy All Monsters fetish is behind this motif, because you never see tract home gardens with a miniature Eiffel Tower trickling beside the Seine. Never the Yamuna flowing adjacent the Taj Mahal. But then again, Godzilla wasn’t French and Rodan wasn’t from India.

I also remember the way my mother pronounced the name of our street as “BAR-bah-DOSE.”

I was in my mid-twenties before I realized that she had not only shifted the pronunciation and cadence, but the syllabic emphasis of the word. Or that it probably never occurred to her that the island of “Bar-BEY-doze” was the inspiration—despite adjacent streets being named Martinique, Antigua, and Grenada.

A few years ago I went back to Barbados Circle, just for old times sake.

It wasn’t quite how I remembered.

The massive red foo dogs at the end of the street were small, white, and on the front porch of a neighbor’s house.

And Jerry’s predominant monster garden feature was a single, not even remotely pagoda looking, pile of river rocks.

Which meant that the only sure memory I have from Barbados Circle is the one factually anchored by a photograph.

In it stands four-year-old me, dressed in a blue and white one-piece jumper, sporting a look of tortured disgust.

An image captured via Polaroid, just moments after I came inside to find my mother and Judy Foster sitting at the dining table, underneath which was a large snow-white rug made of the finest 70s’ shag.

In the center sat an electric percolator on top of a crocheted doily.

In between the gals, girls, young ladies or women (whatever), was a pineapple-shaped ashtray brimming over with spent Pall Malls.

Before each—I'm going with ladies here—sat a saucer and cup filled with a brown liquid that reflected the late afternoon sun like glass.

I vaguely remember associating it with chocolate.

“Can I try some?” I said, pointing to the cup.

“Sure,” my mom replied.

I caught the glancing chuckle she shot towards Judy, but assumed it was because I was trying to act grown-up.

“I’ll show them,” I thought.

And with that, she lifted her cup to my lips, and I took a full slurp of what I could only assume would be the sweetest and most delicious of beverages.

Suddenly, everything that was bad, ugly, and dirty in the world was in my mouth.

It was as if death, disease, human suffering, and a hot liquid version of Hitler himself had blitzkrieged my tongue.

The evil I imbibed was so palpable that my body reflexively spasmed, expelling the vileness onto the shag rug— but not before the demon bean juice had seared its bitterness onto my very soul.

So, should you ever find yourself on Jeopardy, and have the previous paragraph posed in the form of an answer, you’ll know to say, “Why has Brian Lund never had a cup of coffee?”

And until 2020, you would have been correct to append it with “and never set foot in a Starbucks?”

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They saved me.

Is that too dramatic?

I don’t know, it feels that way now. But back then it didn’t.

Back in the depths of Covid lockdown, when I couldn’t find a human connection to save my soul.

When they locked down playgrounds.

When basketball courts were quarantined.

When they filled skate parks with sand and outlawed the ocean.

Back then I drove around for days, weeks, trying to find some semblance of normalcy.

To interact with somebody that wasn’t a liquor store owner.

And when I felt all was lost—not just sad or unhappy, but teetering on clinical depression, the kind where you want to crawl into the highest corner of your attic and disappear—I realized something:

I liked tea.

And I’d heard that Starbucks vended tea.

So, I ventured around the corner to my local Starbucks, the interior of which was closed, but the drive-through open.

And when I got there, I encountered the greatest group of gals, women, young women, ladies—what the fuck, aren’t we over this by now?

Let’s just say I encountered a great group of people.

Blue haired, rainbow flagged, pierced nosed, neck tattooed people.

Troubled, terrible relationship with their fathers, lost for a generation, and only after years of therapy realizing what they missed out on people.

People who I suspect don’t share my political views, but who made me feel warm, welcomed, and embraced, in a time when everything else in this world rejected me.

And I never once caught cynicism

I never once caught anger.

I never once caught bitterness or any of the bullshit that seems to impregnate the human condition these days.

These ladies, gals, young women—fuck it, I’m settling on people—were just doing their best to keep everybody’s spirits up.

Which, by divine providence and random locality, included me.

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It’s four years later, and I go to that same Starbucks every single day.

I never miss, no matter what.

The people and the names change, but the vibe is the same.

I tip like a motherfucker, though they don’t expect it, and every December 24th, I stop by with a big fat bag of Amazon gift cards.

To say “thank you.”

Thank you so much for your smiles.

And your positivity.

And your energy and conviction, no matter what we’re going through.

No matter what’s happening in the world.

No matter the political, social, or public health crisis—real or imagined—you know that, at our core, we are all just people.

People who need connection.

I say “thank you” so much for the smiles, and for being there, day after day, and for pulling me out of the furthest corners of my mental attic.

Sincerely, some guy named Brian.

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