Just about every day, I go to the Starbucks on 36th and Madison and work on my new book. They’ve come to know me there, which is half comforting, half embarassingly pathetic. Well today I went in, tired from an hour on the elliptical and looking forward to my half-caf, iced skinny vanilla latte with soy milk (somehow, I’ve become one of those people who order ridiculously complex drinks).

“Oh goody,” I thought to myself as I opened the door, “it’s not crowded at all!”

Well there was a reason why. A very good reason. The floor was littered with poop. POOP.

It was obvious that several people had stepped in it and smeared it, because it was all over the goddamn place.

“What the hell happened in here?!” I hollered from the door way, as though I’d walked through my own front door and found feces all over the place.

“Some lady went to the bathroom on herself,” a girl said.

Now wait a minute. First of all, say that was true…how did “it” get outside her pants? I mean…right? You can’t just freestyle this kind of thing. This was planned. This was fecal terrorism.

I’m well versed in fecal terrorism thanks to my cocker spaniel. Garbo realized early on that poop was her only weapon against our tryanny and would express her displeasure at not being allowed on the couch, or me ignorning her for a new Barbie by pooping on my beanbag chair (what a wonderful surprise!) or in the kitchen where mama made her coffee.

Even more disturbing, no one at Starbucks seemed too concerned about cleaning it up. No signs, no paper towels over it, nothin. They’re making food there for god sakes!

Shit like this never happens in Irvine. And I mean that literally…shit all over a coffee house never happens in Orange County. It just doesn’t.