Daniel the Pirate
2005-05-30
10:35 p.m.

Yesterday, I am delighted to report, I was waited on at St@rbucks by Daniel the Pirate. You may remember him from the movie "Dodgeb@ll?" I drove up to the speaker and was greeted by a suspiciously chipper voice that proudly stated, "Hi, I'm Daniel and I will take your order whenever you're ready." (Sometime I'd like to set there for about ten minutes and see if they really mean what they say.) So, I gave Daniel my order and drove on up to the window. There, eagerly awaiting my reaction, was a twentysomething-year-old pirate, exuberantly sporting the trademark long piratey hair, piratey tattoos, and, yes, the black piratey eye patch. All he needed was a hook and a parrot, but seeing that we in the midwest are fairly lacking in the pirate department I was willing to overlook these deficiencies. Now, perhaps if I were a bolder and more quickwitted Diarylander, like Spritopias or Hiss, I would have done more than handed him my money and turned around and looked at Ev and Shau with the big-eyed "What the..." look. Unfortunately I'm a slow-witted weenie and that's all I could manage. Anyhow, we drove away with Ev's Iced Caramel Macchiato while discussing the validity of (read "mercilessly poking fun of") Daniel the Pirate, and then it dawned on us..."Hey, what was the name of the guy in Dodgeb@ll who thought he was a pirate? Oh my gosh, it was Daniel, his name was Daniel!" (More "What the..." looks!) You have no idea of how disappointing it was to have to accept the sad fact that Daniel the St@rbucks Pirate was nothing more than a pirate poser and that his friend Captain Jack Sparrow probably wouldn't be setting sail for the midwest anytime soon.

I must say that St@rbucks has given me more drive through pleasure *wink* than any other franchise I frequent. They have very high qualifications for their employees, as was testified to by the latte maker/poet who insisted he send me off with a recitation of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay one evening last December. Now come on, how is that for raising the bar in customer service? McDonald's will be hard pressed to find help that will give you a little Shakespeare with those fries.

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