Insert 'Wizard of Oz' Reference Here

I spent a bit of the lazy afternoon looking for a chocolate chip cookies recipe that included Bailey's because... well, there's not really a good reason not to.  I was going to need to call on our curry-loving neighbors for help.

Me:  Mike, this one calls for coconut.  Maybe we could ask our neighbors if they have some.

Mike: This isn't the Midwest, you know.

My husband and I just spent our first Christmas together—at Starbucks. I sat in a scratchy, stained armchair in the corner while he worked tirelessly behind the counter, mustering up all the holiday cheer that he could. All morning, customers rolled through the front doors, most asking “What the heck are you guys doing open on Christmas morning?” Only once did Mike mumble in return, “Because stupid people like you show up for Frappacinnos.”  

It was no surprise, however, that an obscene number of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants showed up for their morning coffee on Christmas Day, many asking aloud why Starbucks wasn’t brewing anything but Christmas Blend. After all, in the heaven of upper-middle-class that is Exton, Pennsylvania, this is only one of four Starbucks, tucked away just off the main drag of Route 100 or Pottstown Pike or a million other names that vary, depending on what block you’re on.  

The Starbucks rests between two Targets, a large indoor shopping mall, dozens of chain-restaurants, and an outdoor shopping complex with brick sidewalks named “Main Street on Exton Square” to make you feel all ol-timey while you swipe your credit card. If someone were to pay you $1 for each traffic light you passed from one end of town to the next, you’d be rich. In fact, we suspect this is how the mayor is paying for the new municipal building between the Barnes and Noble and Cosi.

Two minutes down the road is our new home: Hollow Run Apartments. The complex resembles something between our old college dormitories and 1970’s Eastern European government housing units. From where we sit at our kitchen table, we can see the roofs of an adjacent apartment building; it is covered with steel fans, vents, and chimneys, and we like to call it the New Jersey skyline. Michael grew up in this area, and I can’t say a suburban haven just outside a major city is foreign to me either. This time around, however, in our new apartment, we suddenly find ourselves in the minority.

Our second floor landing holds four apartments, and we are the only native English speakers on the block. There is a possible exception to this rule, and that is the apartment directly across from us, out of which we have never seen anyone enter or exit., despite leaping from dinner to our peephole if we suspect any movement from them. Next to the mystery apartment is a Mexican family who arrives home at a specific time of the day, roughly the time that I usually linger near the door to eavesdrop and practice my Spanish. Next door to our apartment is an Indian family with two children whose high-pitched screaming would be maddening if they didn’t smile so shyly and sweetly at us when we pass them in the hall. We are on a first-name, Christmas-goody-exchanging basis with this family, though we forgot the wife’s name after meeting her and have yet to work up the courage to ask again. We smile when we walk up the steps and through the door of our first apartment together, knowing the memories will come wafting back for the rest of our lives—whenever we smell curry