Mochas, and Lattes, and Crickets- OH MY!!

I’m going to go a little “Hollywood” in this blog, and by Hollywood, I mean a little bit between Cinderella and Indiana Jones (the last crusade one with Sean Connery, not the one with the weird chanting or strange voodoo doll), and maybe a dash of Sleepless in Seattle and While You Were Sleeping thrown in for good measure. And since I’m covering my romantic comedy bases, I have to throw One Fine Day out there even though I didn’t like Michelle Phieffer, George Clooney swooned his caesar hair-cutted way into my heart with that film and I will find a way to reference it today.

So, once upon a time, that time being today, this morning, I started upon doing some early morning tasks outside the store. I was assessing the front of the building, the signage and the tables and chairs outside. I went to get the umbrellas to roll them into their perspective spots on the patio when LO AND BEHOLD, what should I find but masses and masses of CRICKETS guarding the base of the umbrella with their little black-shiny-metal-looking-armored bodies. They were starting at me all beady-eyed and prepared to pounce at the first sign of movement. I could hear it in their chirping, they were sending messages back and forth like warp speed morse-code, I just knew they were saying, “imposter alert, big tall monster kill us will she…step on us, monster will…” (I don’t know why the crickets talk like Yoda, but it seemed fitting). I know people would wonder why don’t I just step on these little guys, just kill them and put them out of MY misery…well, it’s like the scene in Indiana Jones where Indy has to go into the snakes and he says, “Snakes…it’s ALWAYS snakes…” and if I killed the crickets:
1. I wouldn’t be able to say this line everytime I see them and I LOVE that line because the word “snakes” can be replaced with ANYTHING, like, if it starts raining on a busy day, one could say, “Rain…it’s ALWAYS rain…” haha! Or, if someone JUST got their car washed and a bird poops, “Poop…it’s ALWAYS poop…” See, isn’t it great?!?!
2. I am SERIOUSLY, cripplingly afraid of them. It’s the same with roaches…not only can I NOT kill them, I can’t even get CLOSE enough to them to shoo them away. That whole saying about “they are more scared of you than you are of them…” whoever said that nonsense probably never was chased by a roach…and that is some SCARY crazy stuff that a person can never forget, I would imagine, at least.

My dilemma was made worse by the fact that I wasn’t even working on the clock yet. So, here I was, sacrificing my life among this army of morse-code talking crickets and I wasn’t even getting paid for this! I was just assessing how the “open” went before I took over the shift at 6 a.m. and it so happens that the chairs and umbrellas weren’t set up yet so out of the goodness of my heart, I was risking my well-being and my sanity fighting for the rights of the Starbucks umbrellas (aka- the beasts, as they two of the hardest monstrosities to maneuver) all while basically VOLUNTEERING my time.

I left well enough alone. It was too hot for customers to sit outside anyway, and I could send the barista, a young girl who doesn’t know to be afraid of crickets just yet, to set the umbrellas up later as I had more “important” manager duties to do, like restock the straws or something safe like that, haha.

Anyway, the other Hollywood things I was mulling today occurred because a very handsome (married) cop came in and said that his buddies were asking him about me (because he spends a lot of time on his patrol around our store). His buddies had been in several times, but they don’t work in the area, so I had never really chatted with them as I had with him before. I told him to “hook a sister up” (aka, introduce me sometime).

When I am working behind the counter, I’m always waiting for that amazing, God-inspired moment like from “While You Were Sleeping” to happen. And I don’t mean in a way of I’m waiting for God to bless me with some kind of miracle, not that I DON’T expect that, but like I’ve said before, I know that we are often the product of the decisions we make and I have been amazingly blessed with opportunity, but partly because of my own selfishness and blindness to the truth, I had let some things slip away in my life and even in other instances hurt people that were important to me, but I think we have all done this to some degree at different times in our lives, and if we turn our hearts inward or our heads away from possible blessings in the future, we may miss what God is wanting us to see.

All that to say, I’d love to just have some movie character moment where I can jump into the subway and save the life of the brother of the man of my dreams (While You Were Sleeping)…or maybe meet someone who is Sleepless in Dallas because I served them too much coffee! Haha. Or maybe, I can have One Fine Day that George Clooney comes in to order an Iced Coffee with cold half and half and Splenda and I can say, “That’s MY favorite drink, too!” and he can say, “When’s your next break…? Because I’d like to steal you away…” and I can say, “You already stole my heart…” Okay, hopefully it won’t be that corny, but meeting him would rock.

Most of the great romantic comedies and even adventure movies, these Hollywood fairyish tales start with the female being in some compromising situation. My job isn’t exactly “compromising,” unless, of course, we take into consideration the crickets. But, I think that I can still anticipate my Cinderella Happily Ever Cricket-free After. I may even get a "get out of jail free" for traffic tickets if I play my cards right! Between working at a hot spot for "chance meetings" and attending church on Saturday (singles) night, I think I stand a pretty good shot at my Happy Ending.