It would be easier to say 'everyone sucks major ass and should move to a continent that doesn't include me'

My girlfriend works at a major international chain coffee shop that will not be named in this post, apart from the above. It's Starbucks. Anyway, due to her employment by the single biggest non-discount-price corporation, I spend a lot of time in said shop. It's not because I like the atmosphere.

Incidentally, does anyone really understand what 'I like the atmosphere' means? I've only ever heard it in reference to places like Starbucks and various booksellers, but I've never heard it in reference to places like Wal-Mart, JC Penny, Macys, Best Buy, or any "Bar and Grill(e)" restaurant. Do these places not have atmosphere? I've been inside them, and I can breathe (except when there are waaaay too many people and I get a little claustrophobic). I imagine the atmosphere is made up of nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2, much like the rest of the gods damned planet. And if it's a metaphor (which yes, I know it is), I would LOVE to know what makes one retail establishment more interpersonally accessible than another.

So the reason I spend a lot of time in Starbucks is because they have chairs to sit in, usually tables to set a portable computer on, and wi-fi, which my aforementioned lady friend gets at fifty per cent off. Normally I would prefer to sit at a shop with free wi-fi, like the locally owned coffee shop has (I think), but as this Starbucks stays open later than all but one other Starbucks in town, and is so very convenient to a) my lady, and b) my own workplace, I am willing to make sacrifices.

The problem (or one of them) I have with my own spending so much time in Starbucks is that when every other shop in the complex closes, all the teenagers, who on this occasion I find myself identifying as "Trendy MacPopcollars", flock directly to the inside of this shop. Now I realise it's summer, and they want to all hang out with friends. I just think that they should be able to find at least one friend who is willing to have drugs and alcohol to be consumed at unwisely high rates. Isn't that what being high school age is about? That's how it was when I was in HS. Or so I'm told, because I took the other option to massive intoxication, which was hanging out at home and talking online to like-minded people who picked "option B".

But I heard plenty of stories about getting drunk and high during the school year, so how am I supposed to believe that the same thing wasn't going on daily, or at least most days, throughout the summer? You have even FEWER places to be! And it's not like these kids have jobs, like some of my classmates did. (My classmates, being students at an upscale private Catholic HS, frequently had jobs at country clubs. I don't know exactly what they did, but I presume it was anything but kitchen work - you want the white kids to be visible and the "ethnic" kids to be in the kitchen and taking out the rubbish.) Now I had jobs where I could work in the evening, such as at a couple cinemas, a restaurant, and a Best Buy. I frequently did work in the evening. But that meant I didn't have time to hang out in fucking coffee shops until they kicked me out. And if I wasn't working evenings, I had to be in at 9 or 10 the next morning, so I was usually at home, either sleeping or making half-arsed attempts at sleep while actually playing video games!

The real problems I have though, aren't that they're there. It's that there's always at least five of them. Once the fifth member of the party leaves though, things quiet down thankfully. In the mean time, they're taking up large sections of the shop, and making lots of loud conversation at each other. Tonight one even threw another's Trendy McSandal across the shop.

(At this point, the author lost what semblance of a topic he had, and ends up yelling about individual things) ... (Or rather, he did that 20 minutes ago and is just now admitting it)

(I need an editor)