BLOGnettes: How I Got To Starbucks
Phawker’s got a nice excerpt of some memoir writing from 19 year-old Colleen Reese, a barista at the Starbucks in Montgomery Mall. It’s called “How I got to Starbucks: A Teenage Memoir of Midlife Crisis”
BY COLLEEN REESE By the time it was over, high school finally made sense to me: Clean lines were drawn between the extraordinaires bound for leafy private colleges and the Joe Regulars headed to state schools; between the part-timers headed to community college and the free spirit do-gooders who would travel the world and eventually settle down for a little missionary work in Uganda or whatnot; and let us not forget the sons of working class shlubs doomed to endless summer apprenticeships with their neighbor’s landscaping companies. And, as predicted, they all moved on in logical directions.
…
Read the rest at Phawker.
Mathematically speaking, it’s true, a 19 year-old’s midlife crisis would be about age 9. Keep your chin up Colleen. Some of us make it out of Starbucks alive.













Not to make to much of a relatively minor point, but if you read closely the crisis does in fact begin when she is around nine. Just sayin’.
Indeed! The story made me realize that there’s a kind of projection in talking about one’s “midlife crisis.” If you’re 40 when it happens, your implicit estimate is that you’ll live 80 years. But when you’re 80 and looking back, there’s no estimating. You pretty much know when your mid-life crisis happened. Same with Colleen, 19 looking back on 9. Anyway, it was a great read! Thanks for publishing it.
Andrew
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