Most social constructions have three main players: the pimp, the trick, and the ho. The nightlife industry is no different, being it exists solely for single men to get laid and businessmen to get paid. The owners (pimps) make most of their money from desperate guys (tricks) who come to clubs to hit on girls (ho’s). Everything that a bar does - ladies night, happy hour, special events - is simply to attract paying male customers, who sustain the complex by stuffing cash in the owners pockets. You know that $8 rail vodka tonic you just bought? The whole bottle of vodka it came from cost just $4. All a pimp has to do to get paying tricks is attract ho’s to the club.

The reason I pay high drink prices is to be around women, and for no other reason. While I’d like to say I go out to “hang out” with friends, I could easily do that at home with liquor, music, and dim lighting. Ladies go out for a slightly different reason: to “dance”. Of course anyone can dance at home, but I’m told it’s more fun to shake you ass when guys are watching.

A slight identity crisis occurs when you have guys who flaunt their supposed VIP club status. These guys think they are special because they get into the smallest room in the club, but at the end of the night who do you think goes to bed a little richer? The pimp introduces his best tricks to girls at the club so he’ll return to spend hundreds more at that table. It’s all about money, done through a fog of sexy women and alcohol.

Most Starbucks baristas seem to fit a universal pattern. Aged between eighteen to twenty-six, they can be placed in one of the following seven categories:

1. The A/V Geek. These barista’s were in the control room during all their high school plays because they didn’t like the spotlight — and even if they did, the spotlight wouldn’t have liked like them. Their fake-nice customer service is less believable than the last stripper who told me she liked me for my personality. You can see hate in their eyes as they make your double foam latte - against you, the world, and themselves.

2. The Club Kid. This guy thinks working at Starbucks doesn’t bring his cool factor down a notch — in fact he thinks being a barista is so counterculture that he brags about it to the girls he meets. He often brings in his annoying friends and hooks them up with femininely colored frappuccino (they get kicked out of the mall so often that there is nowhere else for them to really go). Because The Club Kid is vain, you often see him in actual club gear, with hair gel’d back and seashell bracelet clacking away as he extra hot’s your drink.

3. The Homely Woman. She is cheery, nice and generally welcomes human interaction. Unfortunately, the homely woman is very unattractive, doomed to nightly “Tired of all the games” postings on Craigslist personals.

4. The Hipster. For a guy that hates corporation, it sure is ironic to see him working for the one company that has played the only major role in the McDonaldsification of coffee. You’ll often here him say, “I work there for the health benefits,” like he’s doing Starbucks a favor. Unless you go to poetry readings and art showings, you are not on his green apron wearing level. The hipster can also be a girl, who thinks her blue hair fights social conformity. She’s too slow to realize that responding to culture in any way is still conformity.

5. The Transient. Usually male, short, and overflowing with awkward facial hair, this guy is anti-social and doesn’t fit into the Starbucks model of friendliness. He often leaves within 3 months, never to be seen again. No one notices - not even his friends.

6. The Loser Dick. Failing miserably on the comedy circuit, this barista thinks you want to hear his unfunny, cocky statements. Dude, you work at Starbucks, just ring up my seven layer bar and shut up. He uses Starbucks customers as an audience for when he will make it someday, replacing the stuffed animal audience at home when he goes through another round of being an actor (i.e. unemployment).

7. The Hot Girl. Chances are you will see a three-legged dog before you catch a hot girl barista, but she does make seldom appearances. She drives up sales and tips of a particular location due to lonely guys who use Starbucks as their only social outlet, but she never dates a customer because she can not respect a guy who spends $4 a day on coffee. Instead she goes out with the studly jock who picks her up after work in his jeep, equipped with extra big wheels for cul-de-sac offroading.

This list covers 95% of coffee addicted baristas, whose palpating hearts beg for mercy every day.