Panera Bread - Wherefore Art Thou?

Here's a good question - did you ever see Carrie Bradshaw (or any of her friends for that matter) at any kind of cheap chain? Don't recall? Not quite sure??

Well I can tell you for a fact, the answer is no - at least not on any type of regular basis.* Just another of the many ways that my reality is completely different from the beloved Utopia that is NYC for these ladies.

I think it's probably safe to say that EVERYONE I know has spent at least one lazy Sunday morning in their own version of my home base for all studying and lounging - Panera Bread (the Coolidge Corner edition). Yours might be a Panera too, or likely a Starbucks, Peets Coffee and Tea, or Bruegger's Bagels (which I opt for when a particularly fierce night of drinking the evening before has led me to need a Southwestern bagel sandwich - a delicacy that they no longer actually offer, which tells you a bit about my social life these days ) But I digress. Let's just say that I believe everyone can agree on the fact that these types of coffee shops and cafes are a veritable home away from home for TONS of people who need a change of scenery, some elevator muzak and an electrical outlet for their crappy laptop that no longer retains an iota of battery power. But not so for Ms. Bradshaw and her friends. I find this hard to believe, since I have been to the Big Apple, and I have eaten at both a Starbucks and a Cosi there. And there are students and businessmen everywhere attached to their laptops and blackberries either Hoover-ing their lunch or lounging in their sweatpants and chatting online when they should be writing a paper.

I am currently writing this post from Panera - which has become an integral part of my life since I returned to graduate school. Back in the old school Panera days, whenever a server came across a "you pick two" order that contained a broccoli cheese soup and an orchard harvest salad - they didn't look for the card on the table with the matching order number - they looked for my face. When the fine folks at Panera decided to stop serving the food to tables, my study buddy/"Panera Partner in Crime" and I continued to recieve table service for an additional month based on our complaints and our personal history with the staff here, while the rest of the general population begrudgingly waited in lines until their beepers started freaking out. I have even been teased about having an unhealthy relationship with the former manager of this location (he shall remain nameless, but if you ever see a Panera manager with a salmon colored dress shirt and pleated khakis - you'll know he's my man).

Taylor and I have been perched here for about two and a half hours at this point. We spent the first hour catching up about all the drama in our lives over soups and salads. I am on edge tonight already because the drink machine is broken and I can't have my weekly mountain dew with just a smidge of fruit punch - one of my favorite mocktails. To make matters worse, Pandora isn't working so I'm being forced to listen to the folks at the table next to me carry on what I can only surmise to be awkward first date conversation. And now, I have officially snapped on the crazy lady next to me... or in actuality, I have expressed my strong feelings about said crazy lady to Taylor via BlackBerry messenger because I am extremely passive aggressive. Taylor and I are those girls. We spend too much time here. We know what tables have outlets and which don't. We know what time we MUST arrive here in order to beat the ladies with the huge strollers that take up all the big tables or at exactly what time they will begin to give away the day's scones and cookies that won't last until tomorrow. This is why we were able to get an outlet with not one BUT TWO PLUGS so that we can both work on our last minute papers since we have said shitty laptops without battery power. Soooo CL (short for crazy lady) next to me saunters in and sits at the table that actually contains the outlet - Taylor and I are obviously at a much larger table just next to this small outlet table so we can spread out our Nursing Ethics books and our blackberries and our non-Mountain Dew soft drinks. And after a half hour during which I observe her eating salad out of a tupperware container taken from home, she interrupts our pandora-listening to ask us to remove one laptop so she can use the plug for the very important purpose of charging her cell phone. Luckily TayTay is more ballsy than I and she politely but firmly informs CL-with-dead-cell-phone that our laptops simply won't survive without this power source. I just want to scream - "Don't mess with me lady, they don't have any mountain dew here!" but I obviously can't because that would be active aggressive.

Sigh - maybe this is why Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha avoid these places like the plague. I should stop my contemplation here though - only 38 minutes until the new manager comes by the table and informs us that it's almost time to pack up and head out - I know lady, I know.

*PS - For all of you out there who are questioning the validity of my knowledge regarding Carrie and coffee shops, yes there was that one episode where she resorted to lugging her laptop to Starbucks to work on her column. I refuse to validate this singular incidence because it involved a romantic encounter - which I assure you, never actually happens in a Starbucks - which even in our pristine Brookline location has a sit down population of only frantically cramming students and homeless folks actually sitting in it. And the movie definitely doesn't count - who interviews potential assistants in a Starbucks? No one in real life.