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Day 100 without WiFi: Is everyone a freelance writer?

*not really day 100 but you get the point*

I am officially an expert on all places WiFi and good seating arrangements and places with free refills.

I should have WiFi by tomorrow if I can set it up on my own (#prayersforPaige), so hopefully I can start working from home instead of calling every fast food place in town to see if they have WiFi.

What I've learned from this week without WiFi:

Apparently everybody else is a freelance writer
Why are there so many people at Starbucks at noon on a weekday? Does no one have jobs? Why are there kids here? Do Highland Park kids get random days off? Do SMU kids literally never go to class? Why are there other people camped out at Starbucks with their laptop hogging a table? Does everybody have a novel to write? Do these people know I'm a very important journalist who needs to research Bloody Marys in Addison and I'm on a deadline?

Starbucks is the universal meeting place
And I get it. Anytime I need to meet with a subject to interview, I suggest Starbucks because 1) I'm basic and 2) Everybody knows Starbucks and it's not complicated. But seriously, it will be 9 a.m. on a Friday morning and three women will be at Starbucks to work out their friendship problems.

Overheard conversation:
Woman 1: I'm just a control freak and I need to work on it. I'll tell y'all a story. My son decorated the Christmas tree this year and it doesn't look good. Every time I walk past it, I freak out a little because he put all of the ornaments in the front of the tree. THE FRONT OF THE TREE. I know I shouldn't freak out, but it's so hard.
Woman 2 and 3: *Nods* Starbucks is also really noisy
I recommend working at Starbucks if all you have to do is write. I don't recommend it when you need to listen to an interview on your headphones but you can't hear because a blender is going off every two minutes.

I love La Madeline
This is nothing new. I literally love the place. They have the best tuna sandwich and chips in town and if anyone tries to dispute me, I'll fight you to the death.

But the problem with La Madeline is it gets very, very, very busy during lunch time. After finishing my tuna sandwich, I sat on my computer working and I could feel glares from everybody. They needed some place to sit and eat their lunch and I needed a place to sit and write about Pearl Harbor. The peer pressure became too much for me and I ended up leaving. I was mad they had won, but I'll be back.

Chick-fil-A is God's fast food chain
Are you ever sitting in your car in Chick-fil-A's drive-thru and thinking how easy it all is? Every other fast food place takes forever and the cashier never understands you and your order is never right. But with CFA, it's just different. And that's because Jesus is on their side. And Chick-fil-A is host to several Bible studies among SMU students, I learned. I mean they aren't Southern Methodist University for nothing, amirite???? Chick-fil-A by SMU is spacious but really cold. There aren't a lot of outlets for your computer charger, but they do have crushed ice, so that's nice. Nordstrom's coffeeshop is my least favorite
Sometimes you'll be shopping in Top Shop, enjoying your Wednesday, thinking how great life is when you'll get an email from your editor. It's kind of an emergency and you kind of freak out. Luckily, your laptop is in your car, so you go and grab it. As you're walking back, you're mapping out all the places you could do to work.

I could drive to Starbucks somewhere around here. Or I could go to the Starbucks in the mall. I wonder if they have WiFi, though. I'm sure they do. They can't not have WiFi. Or maybe I'll go to the Apple store. Surely, no one will notice I'm there not buying anything.

But then you'll walk through Nordstroms and see its coffeeshop right outside the department store. You'll make a spontaneous decision to plop there and start working. You don't know their menu, though. And you don't like coffee. So you will spend $5 on a bottle of water that is a brand you've never even heard of. You will buy the water because there's something in your morals that thinks it's ok to joke about murder, but you can't stand the thought of using a coffeeshop's WiFi without buying something. So you spend the $5 on the water. Then you choose a WiFi connection. Why would I choose the Apple store WiFi, you think. That store is across the mall. So you choose the Nordstroms WiFi, but you realize it's not that great. You get home and realize the Apple store is right next to the coffeeshop and you're just really dumb. Life is hard.

I almost have WiFi, y'all.
at 3:06:00 PM