“I’m so spoiled. I must have a Starbucks vanilla latte every day.” — Katie Holmes

It’s a cold and windy sunny day, as I sit in my red Prius in the parking lot facing the local Starbucks. I like writing here. Tolstoy, I’m told, liked writing in the woods, much like Thoreau. Woods frighten me. They’re full of miscreant critters. I prefer the local, more congested agora.

Ordinarily, I would enjoy being distracted from my prose by the happy flow of Starbuckians, those latte-slurping modernists, especially the young, brave and proud millennials, the best and the brightest, the rich, the not so rich, the deeply caffeinated, leaping from their cars, bikes and skateboards to get their fix. It’s a human comedy I deeply enjoy.

But the clouds of quasi-gentrification have descended upon this place today. It seems that our local Starbucks has decided to close down for a week to upscale the interior.

For some time, they’ve posted signs in the window with detailed sketches of the all-new and improved Starbucks Cafe to come. It seems that Starbuckians, famously urbane and focused on their iPhones, don’t read posted notices, unless they’re on Twitter.

I’m sure that management notified as many Starbuckians as they could as they came in each day, but just as Noah famously said as he stood on the deck of the ark and watched some late arriving orangutans drowning in the great flood, “Some people never get the memo.”

So on this chilly day, one by one, two by three, six by eight, the Starbuckians come, passing my car, peering in at me sitting with my laptop, wondering why I’m not joining them. Then they hit the door and try it. It’s locked. They pull on the handle, once, twice, over and over, thinking it’s stuck. Then they cup their hands over their eyes and peer into the terra cotta lighted interior.

“There’s someone in there. I can see them. Can you see them?” one bearded boy with Colby hat and North Face jacket proclaims aloud.

A girl in extra-tight camo yoga pants and Colby sweatshirt pushes her face to the glass. “Yes, they’re working.”

“Then why is the door locked?”

“No, those are workers. They’re putting up new wallpaper.”

“New wallpaper? What was wrong with the paper they had?”

“What was that like?”

“I don’t know. Who looks at the wallpaper in Starbucks?”

I roll down my window to hear the rest of the conversation, but it’s drowned out by a woman who stops beside my window and talks into her iPhone 6 Plus.

“I don’t know,” she shouts. “I saw a Starbucks sign from the highway and got off, but it’s closed. Shall I go to Dunkin’?”

More cars appear. Singles, doubles, families congregate around the door. As urbanites generally do at the scene of a homicide or accident, they begin to talk to one another. The bits of conversation I can pick up seem to be about some fuss over the new Christmas-red cups Starbucks decided on this year.

“It’s so anti-Christmas.”

“What did you want? Reindeers?”

“Don’t be silly, but a bit of holly maybe?”

“How about little jingle bells and some snowflakes?”

“‘Merry Christmas’ would be nice.”

“I’m told that they can’t say that.”

“Can’t say ‘Merry Christmas’? Is this one of those progressive things?”

I get out of the car and mingle among them, trying to hide my Dunkin’ Donuts cup from view. Now the conversation is drifting to serious millennial topics: comedian Amy Schumer’s November show in Portland that ran only 45 minutes, when they were all expecting much more.

Two girls in matching sneakers chat about Justin Bieber walking off stage in his concert somewhere.

“Was that the one where they caught him naked?”

“He was naked?” her friend squeals.

Suddenly the doors open, and two large men come out carrying a rolled-up sign.

“Can we go in now?” someone asks.

The men say nothing, but slowly unfurl the plastic sign and hang it between two umbrella posts.

“THE DRIVE IN WINDOW IS OPEN” it proclaims.

There is a sudden rush, much like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, to the parked cars. In a matter of minutes, a cacophony of shouts, squealing brakes and bursts of joyful laughter erupt.

Then a long line of cars grows, each jockeying for first place, in a line that appears like an Italian wedding or an Irish funeral.

I go back to my red Prius to make notes on the event. I learned this day that, if you wait long enough and are patient in this small hamlet we call home, something exciting and wonderful can happen.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.

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