a day for peanut butter mochas

Ok so today was a beautiful, warm, fall day and I have lots of reading to do so I thought to myself, "I should stroll out to a coffee shop and sit and sip a latte and do some reading." Not that I need to bribe myself to keep up with the reading, "Computational Complexity Theory," "Introduction to the Theory of Computation" and "Theory of Computational Complexity" (theorists are nothing if not creative) are obviously riveting texts. So I headed out and over to the nearest shopping center to find that the "cafe" is actually a sandwich shop with less ambiance than the laundry room. Next! The next nearest establishment which purports to serve cappuccino according to the large lettering painted in the window (in a not exactly serene but friendly way) turned out to be a noisy diner looking sort of place - also not exactly conducive to sipping and reading. Next!
Well, I live in a mostly residential area and having exhausted the nearby shopping centers I decided to start walking towards central campus, surely there will be coffee down there. So I walked, and walked, and walked some more, and all I passed were houses. Finally I arrived downtown and I was distracted from my coffee search (partly because I was now quite warm and, admittedly, partly because I wasn't really that interested in reading in the first place) by a bookstore that I passed. I have several patches on my book bag and I've been wanting to get a UM patch to add to the collection. Well, the first bookstore was a bust. They had a few random t-shirts and a guy shopping with his girlfriend, "it's going to shrink [insert trailing off voice]" "are you sure? it says preshrunk" "it will shrink." Now can I just point out that if the guy was telling the girl that it was going to shrink there would then ensue a lengthy discussion about whether or not he was trying to insinuate that she was fat. I decided it was best to make my exit before he figured that out.
After all that walking and the inevitable wait for the bus to get to north campus for my class, I decided it would be best to just go to the official campus book store - surely they would have plenty of UM paraphernalia. So, I whipped out my map and made my way to the Student Union which is an impressively large, stone building with lots of people coming in and out - "this looks promising" I thought to myself. So I went up the steps, opened the door, walked in, and ... nothing. Big empty hallways. Echoing sounds coming from around a corner. Not exactly the warm welcome I was hoping for. So I wandered around and found a map attached to a wall in a sort of this is the union so we have to admit that there are useful things here but we don't want to interfere with the posh, albeit cold decor. Ahhh, the store is on the first floor.
So I went down to the first floor and into the bookstore. To be confronted with a pitiful section of t shirts and baby socks. Where is the school spirit? "show your support for blue by wearing maize" [brief pause while we all wonder which flighty freshman won the school spirit contest with that winning phrase]. Where is the maize? And more importantly where are all the novelty items like patches and key chains? I walked all the way there and nothing! Apparently I am meant to wander in and out of the shops around town looking for such items since the book store appears to be devoted mostly to the selling of actual books. I got out my map again (this time slightly less enthusiastically) and made my way to the nearest bus stop. When I did finally make it to north campus I had a peanut butter mocha (which really does taste like a liquid peanut butter cup). I recommend it highly to anyone having a bad day. Or even anyone having a pretty good day who just wandered all over town only to be discouraged by capitalism. Governmentally located coffee shops and the mandated selling of more stuff with big M's on it!