I had a terrible dream last night.
I dreamed that in the night, a terrible marriage of madness was consummated, and that a corporate merger gave birth to a hideous eldritch corpobomination.
In this dream, somehow, all in one night, the Starbucks corporation and the Walgreens corporation joined forces and fused all their locations together. They called the resulting buildings Stargreens, and in them, you could buy coffee and/or pharmaceuticals and household products. In short, a Stargreens sold everything you could expect to find in a Starbucks OR a Walgreens, plus they had a seating area where you could play on the free wi-fi and enjoy your beverage.
The problem is that due to the sheer density of placement of these establishments, there was one, like, every fifteen or twenty yards in every urban area in the country. EVERY Starbucks was now a Stargreens, including the one in your grocery store, and EVERY Walgreens was now a Stargreens. They were EVERYWHERE, including multiple locations in the same strip mall!
The Canadians managed to hold them back at the border due to the combined efforts of the Canadian border guards, the Mounties, and a secret society that referred to themselves as the Hortonites (they didn’t like being called Timmies.) Every so often, a Stargreens would sprout in a rural forested area, like in Saskatchewan, but the vigilant Hortonites would find and burn it before it could establish roots and spread.
Mexico wasn’t so lucky, and their urban areas ran brown with a variety of mocha lattes and other caffeinated beverages.
They insisted, however, that their sorta kinda urban takeover wasn’t BAD. Rural areas, for example, could manage no more than one or two Stargreens per square mile, and in urban areas, houses and apartments could be built without living rooms or social areas; once your dinner was cooked, you could just walk next door to Stargreens, find a table, and eat THERE, while enjoying free high speed internet, yes? Everybody wins!
I don’t remember how the dream ended. I do remember that a horde of ninjas and professional assassins appeared and laid siege to a number of Stargreens; it was rumored that they were in the pay of the Keurig and Mr. Coffee people.
And I woke up with a terrible urge for dark roast hazelnut, with cream and sugar…