"You want the usual?"

It’s been a rainy start to summer so far which has felt like a grace. Like a nice zero entry pool into the next season.

A few days ago, I was loading dishes in the dishwasher, occasionally glancing out at the rain through the window above the sink, and a memory came to mind.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my friend, Katie, and I began counting down the days to when a Starbucks was opening just about five minutes from our houses. There were a few other locations around the city, but this one was going to be so close!

I was raised on Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan and the sounds of The Cranberries and Sarah McLachlan always playing in the background of my pretend life movie soundtrack. Being in a coffee shop was practically like being in a movie. It was absolute perfection and whimsy for this romcom-loving millennial female. A Starbucks at NW Expressway and Rockwell?! I mean, this might as well be New York City in the fall!

A couple of years and hundreds of white mochas later, I was still frequenting this Starbucks. One day, I walked in and the cute barista said to me, “You want the usual?”

And that was it, folks. What else is there besides being asked this question? It was so dreamy to me.

I remember telling my Mama Lue (my grandma) this story at the time, and she got the biggest kick out of it. It really tickled her. Sometimes she’d make me re-tell the story to other people, which is such a grandma thing to do. And she probably said something like, “Isn’t that just the cutest thing??” when the story was over.

But it really was the cutest thing. I thought it was absolutely the most charming thing. To have a usual order from the usual barista at a usual coffee shop.

Rainy summer days take me to this genre of memories. The sloshing of water as we drive through puddles, the cloudy light inside of my house, and the sound of the rain makes things feel meaningful and slow. It makes me remember really good things.

Just now I almost cleaned out a drawer in my kitchen, but when I looked out the window and was reminded of the dreary, damp day, I decided that writing this story down was actually what was needed.