Monkey See, Monkey Do...

Today was about people observation…observation of the people that visit Starbucks.

One funny thing is how different people are even just a couple hundred miles apart. Houston people and Dallas people, for example, as I have lived in both cities at this point and since I was born in Fort Worth and I chose to live in Houston for 10 years, I am, for the most part unbiased as I offer up the following suppositions.

People in Houston are Texan from a sense that they live in Texas and their football team is called the Texans, but heaven forbid you call them “country” or “cowboyish,” or tell them they have an accent. They will suddenly start talking all proper and sounding like they are from the north. Houstonians take great pride in their individuality and very little pride in their heritage of being from a state of a "lone star." They are refined in a sense of you would never find a Houstonian as a character on the old “Dallas” tv show.

Whereas Dallas people, from what I have observed, can’t wait to show you their newest pair of cowboy boots and let you hear their drawling accent, and they certainly take GREAT pride in the fact that they ARE not only representatives of the lone star state, but they have an NFL team that has a LONE STAR on their helmet. On a daily basis, I have people come up to me in Starbucks and use a vocabulary that can only be described as Dallasunciation.

For example, a lady was telling me she liked my earrings, and she said it like this: “Ayyy. Luuuve. Those. Earrangs. They. Are. So. Cute. Wher-er. Did. You. Get. Tham.?”

Things to notice- every word is its own sentence. She. Talked. THAT. Slow. And the word, “Where” that should only be one syllable was actually almost three syllables when she said it. By the time the whole sentence was completed, I was practically already getting senior citizen benefits. Haha.

The other thing I notice about Dallas people, they are more image conscious, but also more indulgent and likely to splurge. Let me give a Starbucks example: a couple of 50-something ladies wearing $700 jeans and those tattoo type shirts with the tight sleeves and crazy skull and heart designs all over it will come in and order a skinny vanilla latte and a caramel frappuccino light (“but go ahead and put on a tiny bit of whipped cream”) and to celebrate their “light” drinks, they will both get a piece of “low-fat” very berry coffee cake upon my suggestion as it’s the tastiest pastry we serve and it has “low-fat” in the name… They are basically contradictions in terms. That's what makes them hilarious. Well, that and the fact that they are wearing clothes that make them look like 14-year-olds.

I love these ladies that come in with their sparkly cell phones and glittering jewelry. And I love them, not in a “haha” I’m laughing at you way, but in a way that has me wanting a “Real Housewives of Dallas” tv show because it would be a fascinatingly Texas diva type sitcom. And Texas divas are the best kinds of divas. As maddeningly demanding as they are at Starbucks, they are slowly becoming my favorite customers. They provide limitless entertainment from the moment they enter the store in a rush of perfume and fanfare to the moment they leave with a flourish of their scarves and a sweep of their hands through their hair.

I love that Starbucks allows me opportunities to realize that THIS is the future that I have to look forward to- becoming one of these divas.