Coffee Shop Breakup

A week ago, I learned that I would lose my job as a bad barista at what we shall call Unnamed Coffee Shop, as Unnamed Coffee Shop would be closing its doors forever. I was surprisingly devastated because, as it turns out, I actually thoroughly enjoy underachieving, working on my feet, and serving people caffeine for a living. I really do. Also, my amazing boss, the Eternal Optimist, had managed to turn our particular location of Unnamed Coffee Shop into a lovely community. It was truly a nice place to work. Customers cried when they found out we would soon be closing our doors for good, in order to "consolidate the Unnamed Coffee Shop market" in remote and inconceivable places like the Dakotas and Iowa. Turns out we had been bought by a German investment company who also own another coffee shop corporation from the West Coast--we'll call it Stupid-Name Coffee Shop because it has a stupid name--and preferred to expand Stupid-Name Coffee Shop to the Midwest, shutting down most Unnamed Coffee Shops in Michigan and opening Stupid-Name Coffee Shops in the place of those locations that remained. (If that didn't make your brain explode, then you're a great deal smarter and more focused than I am).


Our location is closing in two days. I'm very sad about this. I feel like I just went through a terrible breakup that I didn't see coming. "It's not you. It's me. I just think...I feel like it's not working out. I don't even know who I am anymore. No. I don't think we should give it time. I think we just need to make a clean break of things. And never see each other again. Ever. Here. You can have your things back. Just...get out." I've never actually been through a terrible breakup, but that's what a breakup feels like in my imagination. I have an active imagination. Anyway, because my coffee shop broke up with me, I have been through a period of mourning including, but not limited to, binge eating, impulse shopping (Sorry, Bureaucrat!), and bouts of irritating sentimentalism. As it happens, so have my dear children.

Having only visited Unnamed Coffee Shop a grand total of, like, ten times in their lives, the Anarchist and the Dictator still feel the trauma of separation. The Anarchist has been wailing about "poor poor Unnamed Coffee Shop" all week in her most tragic mourning voice. If I can get her to rend her garments and beat her breast, I'm going to hire her out as a professional mourner (someone in this family's going to have to make some money).

The Dictator, on the other hand, has become highly interested in German investment companies and buyouts:

"A good reason Unnamed Coffee Shop is closing is because some more people can get some good things for their jobs and their families. Kind of like it's going to be like um the people who work in the new place get more money...the people that bought the company...the Germans. And it's good for their families because they can get lots of new things with all their money, but then the people that used to work there have to lose their jobs, which is a little bit bad."

I think the Dictator doesn't understand that she isn't related to the owners of the German investment company, and will thereby not stand to profit from the buyout. Or else, she understands that without a job I cannot afford groceries, but cannot hide her admiration for such a crafty money- making maneuver. She's probably plotting  her own corporate takeover as we speak, imagining the mansions full of American Girl dolls she could acquire as a result.

But even the Dictator finally participated in a brief fit of wistfulness as we attended the store closing party for my Unnamed Coffee Shop tonight. On the car ride there, both girls sang Taylor Swift's "We-ee are never, ever, everrrrr getting back together!" incessantly as a kind of funeral dirge for a coffee shop they would never see again. It was both somber and annoyingly upbeat. The Anarchist announced, "I'm going to Mommy's work and hug Mommy's work and say goodbye because it's so tragic that Mommy's work is closing. Mommy, if it turned out your work wasn't closing after all, then you could be happy again!" Because when Mommy is sad, everyone suffers.

Our customers were supposed to write happy memories on this
chalkboard. And they did. My children, on the other hand,
covered as much of the board as they could reach in tragic
frowny faces and words like "sad"...

...and "wah." As in the crying noise.
See it in the center, there? The Anarchist
really loves drama...and crying.

Both kids pretty much forgot about the horror of it all during the party, because the party had tortilla chips and a captive audience and an employee the Anarchist was intent on stalking. But afterward, the Dictator cast one last lingering glance at the place. "I wish all of this weren't really happening. I wish it was all just a dream and we would wake up and it never would have happened...and Unnamed Coffee Shop would still be open and would stay open forever. Because it's a really nice place and those are really nice people and it makes people happy." I started to explain that this is the reality of free-market capitalism and that human labor is just a depersonalized commodity and that she shouldn't be surprised that the greed of the powerful trumps the needs of individuals, and that this is why we probably won't be able to afford dance classes next year...but then I realized that I should just be glad she had paused in her plans to use a multinational corporation to take over the world long enough to see the human cost. Also, my angry jadedness had almost made me sound embarrassingly like a teenager who had just discovered Marx for the first time. Not cool. But the good news is, my jaded cynicism isn't lasting for long. Because I am totally rebounding. Unnamed Coffee Shop might have seemed perfect, but I was too good for him, anyway. I have a new coffee shop now. And he's super popular.

So if you happen to be in need of coffee and are in the area, you should definitely come visit. We're nestled between the Walmart and a shady apartment complex. Look for me. I'll be the new girl sporting an apron with a topless mermaid on it and weeping as I screw up your drink. Like I said, I'm rebounding.