The District Chatter

I have a pumpkin on my desk at work.   It is the same lonely pumpkin that I picked up off the street in front of the flower shop by my office.   The pumpkin had a “free” sign tacked to it the Monday after Halloween and so it was mine.   Every week or so, I give the pumpkin a hearty tap to ensure that I’m not actually keeping a rotting, festering-from-the-inside horror in the same place I work.  So far, so good.  This pumpkin has serious staying power.

I mention the pumpkin not because it’s important (unless there’s some “World’s Longest Living, Non-Rotting Squash” category in the Guinness Book for World Records), but because of the thought it caused me to have today (it was really an entire thought process about events that occurred a few months ago)…

I left work at lunchtime to grab a pet carrier; my boyfriend and I were picking up the first of our two cats from a foster home that day.   Starbucks was advertising it’s fall “Pumpkin Spice Latte”.  This damn thing gets me every year.

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes have been relegated to the “smell great, taste like shit” section of my brain.  Also included in category are Auntie Annie’s Soft Pretzels*, Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers Chapstick and this exceptionally shady Korean noodle soup my boyfriend picks up from the corner store by our apartment.  All of these items smell as though the gods themselves deemed us mortals worthy to consume them.  Once in my mouth, I realize said gods are laughing at me as furiously scrape my tongue to get the taste off.

Again this year, I was lured by Starbucks clever marketing and the smell of autumnal spices into purchasing a small (”Tall”… whatever) Pumpkin Spice Latte.   I had roughly three sips before dumping it in the trash.   I was disappointed that yet again I was unable to control myself and apparently suffered from some sort of beverage amnesia that prevented me from realizing the taste bud horror I was about to inflict on myself.   This generally happens appalling frequency with Starbucks products and me.

I made it to the pet store (Green Pets on 14th St. NW- about as nice a staff as one could ever hope to find) and on my way out, I realized that Sparky’s Cafe was no longer residing next to the Pet Store.   Sparky’s was a great place to get coffee, assuming that you didn’t have your Chuck Taylor’s tied too tight and were prepared to be snarked at by the staff.  Now it’s gone, replaced by Cork Wine Bar (which I am desperate to try and it’s been there a while, too… I have no excuse other than extreme laziness).

On my way back from Green Pets I came across the pumpkin, having no idea how many months of orange-shaded sitting on my desk-time it would give to me.

This all got me thinking today- are there any non-chain coffee shops left in DC?  I honestly can’t think of one.  I can, however, walk a 4 block radius from my office and run into 3 Starbucks locations and a Caribou Coffee.

The “Starbucks on Every Corner” (or, if you’re a Lewis Black fan, the “Starbucks Across from a Starbucks”) problem has probably been rehashed on every blog imaginable; but as a fan of attempting to buy local when possible, where can I get a good cup of coffee?  Thoughts and input would be appreciated.

* Ahhh, the smell of Auntie Annie’s Pretzels.  Every mall in America should be down on its knees thanking the creators of Auntie Annie’s for filling their shopping space with the smell of sweet waffle cone-like ambrosia.   Unfortunately for Auntie Annie’s, they have created a product that does not smell like what it actually is.  I was tricked into an initial Auntie Annie’s purchase but I soon learned the unholy error of my ways.  Their product isn’t a pretzel- it’s a butter-covered cake product with some rock salt on top.

When I walk by Auntie Annie’s, I don’t think to myself, “Gosh, I could sure use a pretzel right now,” but instead I think, “How big is that waffle cone and how much cubic waffle space can be filled with ice cream?”  I would trade my firstborn for ice cream; I’m pretty sure District Chatter knows what I’m talking about here.  Luckily for me, there is almost always a Maggie Moos that can satisfy the Auntie Annie’s-induced ice cream cravings I experience while shopping.