By Stefana Serafina
“Coffee!” my friend Diana said as soon as the engine roared, and the three of us imagined the smooth, rich flavor of the lattes we'd grab for the long road ahead. Even with an early start from San Francisco, it was going to be dark before we reached the San Diego, our destination for a Christmas visit with Diana’s Mexican family.
Getting coffee proved a tricky business, once we left the Bubble City, a name we liked for San Francisco. Outside the bubble, we were in a different country, highways and billboards and SUV's, a uniform landscape broken up only by a strip of identical stores and the occasional gas station. On highway 80 and then on 580, we looked left and right and took hopeful exits. Maybe there would be a coffee shop. One that isn’t Starbucks, we meant without saying it. We liked to have options. We believed in diversity and small person initiatives. And we liked to think that by making a choice whom to pay for a cup of coffee we were changing the world. But that was at the start of a road trip when we thought we did have a choice.
With coffee still to be found, Diana and the two of us passengers got quiet and thoughtful, not much in the feverish fashion that is normally the mood when you hit the road with friends. Even Nalah the dog stared pensively at the unchanging landscape flying by on both sides. For a while, there are the dry yellow-grass fields with an occasional cow ranch where slim cows chewed in slow motion. The not-so-happy cows California.
Every now and then, another gas station or a mini-mall emerged in the distance and it felt like we hadn’t been moving at all. 711. Taco Bell. MacDonald’s. KFC. Denny’s. Shell and Chevron. Walmart. And Starbucks, of course. Before we went into the gas station store (bathrooms in the back), we knew exactly what we’d get because we knew what they had . 300 miles away from home, in place never visited before, we knew everything around us perfectly well, like in some convenient de javu. Doritos chips, Planters peanuts, Wheat Thins, and Oreo cookies. Coke and Diet. And Starbucks Grande. Consistency in quality, some call it. Not lack of choice.
“All right,” Diana gave in, “You guys wanna get Starbucks? I mean…”
We knew what she meant. We wanted coffee, and three hours closer to San Diego we hadn’t had an option. Starbucks it was. And once accepted, we actually got excited about it: coffee!
“I wonder where the next one is,” Daniel said.
“They’re at every corner,” Diana reminded him. “As soon as there’s a corner, there will be a Starbucks.”
We cracked up and the road trip mood was back.
Sitting in the back seat next to Nalah, I thought about sameness. It was like comfort food, the American landscape. It consoled with the cozy security of the familiar sight, the rewarded anticipation; the safe predictability of a certain flavor, certain size, certain package. Your bank is everywhere and so is your coffee shop. You could be anywhere in the country, on any given road, between any two cities, and the scenery will be so painfully similar that if something different than Walmart enters the picture, your sense of comfort will be inexplicably disturbed. At the end, you’re not simply used to sameness. You need it. You expect it. You crave it. Like a Grande latte. At the end, sameness has become you.
In Starbucks, my friends and I waited a long, silent line along with other highway travelers here for their fluffy Frappuccinos. We wondered if there would still be a line if there were another coffee shop near by. But there isn’t one. And even if there were, it would be another Starbucks. The world’s largest chain of cafés, the Starbucks company opened an average of four to five new stores every day. “Eventually, they'll be opening a Starbucks inside a Starbucks, since there will be no more corners left in the world to open new ones,” Diana noted bitterly.
Well after dusk, we arrived to her parents’ house in a San Diego suburb. It was just like the rest of the houses on this block and just like the houses on any other street around here. Identical rectangular houses with matching square backyards and large garages to fit the large cars. We took a drive around the block, and then returned, looking for the slim metal numbers on the front door to let us now which house was ours. We passed it, then drove backwards, squinting in the dark to find the digits of home.
Lying in a bed that wasn’t mine, I listened to the constant hum of a nearby freeway and before I knew whether I was asleep or awake, I was back home in Eastern Europe where something was terribly wrong. I walked down a street from my childhood, looking for the sweet shop and the bread bakery by the church, but all I could see was a 711, a Staples, and a small Safeway. I ran and ran further, breathless, but on every corner down the endless street there was the same coffee shop. Inside, along the window counters, tall people sipped on lofty plastic coffee cups. I woke up with a scream when I realized that the tall coffee drinkers all had the same face, and, quite obviously, everybody was the same person.
The next day, on Christmas Eve, Diana’s sizable family– sisters, parents, nephews, and grandchildren– gathered in a cheerful, loud Spanglish speaking jumble. Diana’s parents moved here from Mexicali 30 years ago, in pursuit of the American dream. I looked at them, their four daughters and the daughters of their daughters, and I wondered: Is this it? Were we living it, the American dream?
I watched the kids tear gift boxes open, Gap, Old Navy, Coach. Suddenly, there was the overwhelming feeling that all of us were in a box. A square box in a square house in a square town, where thoughts were square and so were dreams. We lived, we worked, we prospered and despaired, we loved and hoped and grew and aged without realizing that we were boxed. Without suspecting the box, we thought it was our world of choice.
In the aftermath of dozens of gift boxes ripped open on the floor, I found myself an owner of a Starbucks gift card. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
On the early San Diego morning when our car was loaded for the return to San Francisco, Diana groaned, “Coffee!”, with a certain urgency to her voice, and the three of us imagined the rich, smooth flavor of warm lattes. From Starbucks.
“My treat,” I announced and waved triumphantly my gift card in their faces.
"Well, at least it’s not our money we’re spending," Diana said and we felt relief.
“My treat,” I announced and waved triumphantly my gift card in their faces.
"Well, at least it’s not our money we’re spending," Diana said and we felt relief.
We made our way into the square world– three Barbie dolls and a dog– advancing through a repetitive painted landscape along with other Barbies who dreamed of lattes.
“Where is my Starbucks?” I shouted. Only half kidding.
