A What?

I'm amazed by the line you always see at coffee places. Mostly due to my lack of liking that bitter brew I'm sure. I know, I can hear some of my few readers closing the browser window in disgust. Sorry, I've just never developed a taste for the stuff. And it's not that I'm amazed that people like it, I love red wine and chocolate and beer are better the darker they are in my book, and have friends who gag at the thought of my preferences in beer and chocolate. It's more that I'm amazed at people dropping the money they do for a cup of coffee. Especially when I know many of them can't afford a lot of things in their life but yet are willing to go to a little coffee hut and drop $5 for a single cup of coffee plus tip. It just astounds me.

But more than that, it's the status and marketing that blows me away. You watch these kids and adults trying to strut their stuff with their Starbucks cups and fancy drinks, and falling for the marketing trick of looking cooler by association. Sadly I look and many of these people and realize that they were never cool, and their kids still don't think they are. Don't worry, I'm not cool either, and wasn't a cool kid in high school. The main difference is, I never was and never wanted to be the cool kid. But sadly, yesterday I dropped $4 on a cup of iced tea.

I did it when I'm more than happy getting the $1.04 64oz cup of gas station iced tea, because I had a request placed for a hot Earl Grey with cream from my spinning buddy that I was heading to meet. So I swung a hard left and pulled into the Safeway that has a Starbucks kiosk in it. I ran in, waited behind the cool kids and stepped up to the counter when it was my turn and asked for a large Earl Grey Hot tea and a Black Iced Tea.

Simple, right?

Then I get asked by the too perky I had 4 americano's with three shots each before 9 and I can feel my hear in my ears barista if I'd like the Venta or Trenta (forgive me if these aren't the right terms) size.

My response was, "The what?". Where she then repeated herself. "L-A-R-G-E" I repeated.

Again, she tried to clarify wherein I looked to the ordering board to try and decipher what she said. Way at the top in tiny little (I have good vision by the way) are some weird made up BS words with ounces next to them. So I asked, "Which is the largest?"

"Oh, the Trenta" She giggled at a pitch that I'm sure if she had done it at night, bats would have mysteriously flown into windows and got tangled in womens hair due to their echo location being thrown off and neighborhood dogs would have woke up their families barking.

"Then I'll take a Trenta."

"Well you should have just said that" She again giggled.

And I just smiled. Yes, I behaved myself, when I really wanted to say to her, "What language is that you're speaking? Oh, Starbucks, a Seattle based company that I'm standing in their Casper Wyoming store is making up BS words to sound sophisticated when in America large means give me the frigg'n large drink is to full of itself to use standard sizing terms?"

And it was then I realized that once again I failed learning how to be one of the cool kids. And I wasn't even upset, and do you know why? Because to fail at being one of the cool kids, what I really failed at was not falling in line with the other popular zombies in using bull shit terms to sound like something other than what it is. Large is frigg'n large and I'll be damned if I pay you five bucks to be told that the piss specimen sized cup of coffee is really a "tall" and I have to learn a whole other version of pig latin to order a large drink. Screw you, don't mess with me without my caffeine in the morning and while you're worried about looking sophisticated I'm happy I don't look as stupid as you when you speak in those corporate yuppy made up terms.

I'm not cool, but I'm sitting here with my large iced tea still not getting the attraction to Starbucks and quite happy with my uncool life with my dogs, guy and knitting.