Starbucks

What is it about a coffeeshop that inspires me to write?  I'm kicked back with my beverage of choice (Earl Grey tea with three shots of raspberry syrup and soy milk) and the ebb and flow of humanity in this downtown coffee emporium is SO stimulating.  A guy who looks flat out homeless is buying a $6 caramel macchaiatto and a $3 slice of cinnamon coffeecake.  There are two exquisitely polished young women who blew in, grabbed their lattes, and are tete-a tete over one of these tiny tables, giggling and squealing, "Oh you didn't!  Then what did he do?"  A college girl in knee-length shorts, little canvas slippers, and four - count them, four layered cardigans in various stages of unbuttonage, breeze in, bought an iced fappe thing, and plumped down on a sofa, taking over the entire corner of the room with her books, papers, laptop, and right now she has a mirror set up on the coffee table and is braiding her pretty curly hair.  The young man next to me is frowning at his laptop, checking a tiny notebook, poking a few keys, then frowning again.  The baristas are young, stylish, and bored.  If you need characters, go to a coffee shop downtown.