My trip to Starbucks to get a Venti Coffee Frappuccino…
October 10, 2005, 9:57 PM
I finally visited the new Starbucks Coffee in Waynesboro after work today. Yes, that’s right. Starbucks in Waynesboro. I never thought of Waynesboro as a Starbucks kind of town, but there you have it. I guess someone thought we were.
So I went over there to check the place out. It was built on a small property, where the old KFC once stood (KFC moved to a bigger property next door and the old building was demolished). It’s bigger inside than it looks, too. Going in, I remembered SpinnWebe‘s parody of my original Wal-Mart photo set, now in Life and Times, and so I ordered a Venti Coffee Frappuccino. So this is what it looked like:
I also got to talk with Jodie, a former coworker who now works at the new Starbucks, and then Sandra (who works at Wal-Mart with me) and her husband. That was fun. I also saw Mrs. Kucs, my old sixth grade math teacher, but didn’t say hello because she was already occupied with other people.
And like I said, the place is bigger than it looks. Check it out:
So Starbucks is interesting. Fun place, though I still can’t justify paying that much for coffee.
Otherwise, I have a funny story for you. As you know, my Toyota Previa has been in our family for fifteen years now. Seriously. And we bought it new. And occasionally little things fail. On Friday, the screws holding the passenger-side windshield wiper broke off and fell away while I was driving on I-81 up to Harrisonburg after work. In the rain. The wiper in question was acting strangely earlier in the trip, but I disregarded it. At exit 243 as I was merging onto the ramp, the screws gave out as previously mentioned. This left the driver’s-side wiper working normally, and the passenger side wiper blade dragging and flopping around, held onto the wiper arm by the tube that supplies the washer fluid.
A few blocks after getting off the Interstate, I stopped at an Advance Auto Parts to get new screws. It turns out they don’t carry little tiny screws. They recommended going to a place like Lowe’s or Home Depot to get some screws for it. I also removed the blade entirely at this time so as not to lose the blade entirely.
I managed to do just fine on the rest of the trip, despite the rain and having only one working wiper. I had more problems with my defrosters. Every time I’d stop at a traffic light, my window would fog up. Then it would clear itself after I started up again. Weird.
Oh, by the way, if it had been the driver’s side wiper that had broken off, I’d have called AAA for a tow back home.
While I was in Harrisonburg, I called the parents to ask if I could use Sis’s car the next day to go to work, due to the problem. Mom’s suggestion for the repair was so off-the-wall that it’s comical: “You need to get a new car.” While I really do need a new car in the long term, that wasn’t particularly helpful in the short term. That and I can hardly afford gas on a Wal-Mart income, let alone a new car. Dad, however, had a better solution: Take one of the screws off the good blade and take that into Lowe’s or Home Depot and match it.
So Saturday, I drove Sis’s car to work. Not bad, except I couldn’t find the lever to adjust the seat, so I was driving with my knees in the dashboard. That and it was raining cats and dogs the whole way to work. Also, since it rides so much lower than the Previa, I felt like my butt was dragging on the ground the whole way. Still, better to drive a car with two working wipers through torrential rain in the early morning than my car with just one.
It wasn’t raining on Sunday, so I took my car to work, and then went to Home Depot afterwards. I couldn’t get the screws off on the good blade using the tools I brought with me from home, so I just brought the already-removed passenger-side blade into the store. One of their sales-people found a screw size that was short and would fit. Good stuff. Total cost, including tax: $1.03.
So I checked out on their self-checkout. They have Fastlane – same as we do at Wal-Mart. Weird was hearing the Fastlane voice saying, “Thank you for shopping at The Home Depot!” since I’m so used to it saying Wal-Mart.
So I attempted the repair right there in the lot. I figured that then if it didn’t work, I wouldn’t have to make another trip over to return it and try again. I did get it to work, though. However, it is painfully obvious that I did it myself. Take a look:
Note the screws sticking way up over the rest of the assembly. The original screws didn’t do that. But hey, it holds, it works, and it only cost me a dollar. And you have to be looking for it to really notice it. See?
And for those of you who aren’t familiar, Virginia requires inspection stickers to be placed in the center of the windshield, and not the corner. Additionally, most localities in Virginia (Augusta County in my case) require placement of a county decal next to the inspection sticker.
So there you go. Whether the car will pass inspection like that (in December, as the sticker shows), I don’t know. But then we’ll deal with it then.
Web site: Greg Galcik's trip to Starbucks on Spinnwebe, parody of my first Wal-Mart photo set.
Song: Forever Young from the second Care Bears movie
Quote: "I dropped a windshield wiper on Friday. Seriously."
Categories: Food and drink, Shopping, Toyota Previa, Waynesboro