Teenage Hormones Invade Starbucks

Oh Starbucks… it used to be one of my favorite places. When I was in high school, I would often take the IndyGo bus a mile-and-a-half east to Keystone at the Crossing for counseling. Yes, I went to counseling for probably five sessions to help deal with my parents’ divorce. One of my favorite things about going was stopping by Starbucks on the way to my counseling session and grabbing a vanilla coffee Frappuccino. It’s a wonderful memory, isn’t it? Me sitting in the counselor’s office talking about my problems sippin’ on a Frapp (I apologize to my friend Joy, who is a barista and hates when I call it a “frapp”). In a way it was sort of weird too because I was usually the only high school customer there.

Well, fast forward to today. My friend Johnny and I are apparently on the same wave-length because I got the glorious idea of packing up my computer and working from Starbucks for an hour or so. I called him and it turns out that he had the exact same idea. So we bundled up, braved the snow, and headed down Hazel Dell Parkway towards Starbucks.

I’ve worked from Starbucks before and typically it’s fairly low-key, which makes it a great place to work… but today, something was different. We walked in the door and there were six to eight middle school kids chilling at Starbucks. This is weird for a couple reasons: one, it’s a school day and two, why would they want to hang out at a coffee shop?

Well, when I saw all those kids in there today, I died a little inside. My sacred haven where I could sip a chai latte and do some work was now overrun with teenage hormones run-amok. Johnny and I grabbed a table, got our drinks, and prayed to God that the kids would leave soon. And sure enough, after about 20 minutes, they left… or so we thought.

“Hey Kiel, grab the comfy chairs… let’s grab them before someone else does!” Johnny and I gathered up our stuff and headed towards the comfy chairs. “Ahhh, I finally have my sacred space back.” I kicked back, flipped open the laptop, and before you could say, “you’ve got mail,” the kids were back.

Why God? Why has Starbucks been overrun by middle school kids who think it’s so cool to sip on non-coffee “foo foo” drinks and text/call their friends?!

Oh man, I died a little… because for the first time in a long time, I felt a little too grown-up. First off, I was in middle school from 1994-1997 (I think) and we didn’t have Starbucks. Second, we never had cell phones… although some of us might have had pagers. And you could just feel the hormones in the air… I couldn’t even focus because I could hear girls giggling, “did you call him? Is he coming?”

Sure enough, ten minutes later, four or five guys walk in the door. Oh, they were so adorable with their little “Carmel Pups” letterman jackets. The girls who called them to Starbucks in the first place couldn’t believe that the boys would actually come. “Are you Rigsbee? Are you the guy ‘Rigsbee’ that so-and-so was talking about?”

Oh man, that Rigsbee kid tried so hard to play it cool. “Are you mad at her?” I heard one girl ask. “Nah… I’m not mad at her… it’s just… just…”

Now for those of you thinking, “Kiel, why are you even listening to this crap?” Well first off, the chairs we were sitting in were in a corner and the kids had trapped us in. I tried to escape, but I couldn’t! I called Ruggles on Skype to send out an SOS, I even sent a text message to our middle school pastor Tim to come save us… he never came.

It was so funny watching these kids interact. They were probably thinking that they were the coolest kids on the block because they were sitting at Starbucks, not even drinking coffee, and texting with their phones. Which, by the way, some of these kids had iPhones… what the heck is up with that?! I didn’t even have a pager until I was a freshmen in high school working at Donatos! Which, by the way, I thought I was the coolest dude because I had a pager with a silver chain. And when I finally did get a cell phone, it was a pre-paid Sprint phone that my parents made me return after a few months.

Johnny and I started getting bored with all the immaturity, so if you know me and Johnny, we decided, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” The kids would start singing songs and we would sit in our chairs singing falsetto… “DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’, HOLD ON TO THAT FEE—LING.” Oh man, the kiddos loved us. Johnny almost convinced two of the girls (who I presume were in high school) that he was going to be the next American Idol.

I presumed the two girls were high school age because when the middle school boys walked in, they kept calling them “adorable” and took their picture with their camera phone. I wanted to mock them mercilessly by having Johnny and I pull out our iPhones and take a picture of the high school girls and call them adorable. But Johnny felt that the act might in some way be criminal… I really didn’t see his logic.

So how did our trip to Starbucks end? The kids finally left. It turns out that as cool and mature as they thought they were, you couldn’t take the “kid” out of them, they wanted to go sledding. I remember that Carmel schools actually got out at 12:30 p.m. due to teacher inservice day.

I want to thank the Carmel school system for releasing their kids into the wild during the work day when I’m trying to be productive. And I want to thank the parents who use Starbucks as a place to dump their kids because that is excellent parenting. I told the baristas that perhaps we should have a sign on the door that says, “minors must be accompanied by adults.” My idea didn’t pass, but I got a free refill on my chai latte.

So what’s the moral of this story? Kids, you aren’t cool hanging out at Starbucks on your off-day. Go outside, have fun! You’ll have plenty of time when you’re grown up to get addicted to caffeinated products when you have to get up early to go to a job you may or may not like.

And parents, provide a fun environment for your kids to hang out besides Starbucks. Seriously, when I was younger we went to our friends house or hung out in the neighborhood. We didn’t have cell phones and we didn’t need “foo foo” drinks.

Ahh, well my friends, that was part of my day today. Hope you enjoyed! The way I see it, Starbucks is no longer cool if I have to listen to middle school kids giggle all day long. This is why I go to lesser-known, independent coffee shops, because the kids haven’t caught on to those yet. So let’s keep that our little secret.