Black Coffee in Bed

Some random musings on coffee...

Starbucks now has little booklets containing directions on how to order there. I am tragically not hip and therefore probably the last person to realize this. It does seem damn silly to me that ordering at Starbucks has to be done in some sort of arcane ritual that requires written directions to navigate. When I travel behind enemy lines (i.e. non-Dunkin Donuts occupied territory) I'm sometimes forced to buy Starbucks and I admit I've found that ritual bewildering. And pointless. All I want is freakin' coffee and instead I'm forced to dodge 'ventis', skip past 'doppios', hurtle a 'quad' or two and fend off a 'ristretto.' Parlez-vous Dunkies?

I suspect all this rigmarole stems from a) Starbucks' wish that people march in some sort of Orwellian lock-step while consuming their product (We must have ordnung) and b) people's wish to justify the outrageous sums they spend there by tarting up what is the end just plain fucking coffee and indulging in this snob appeal claptrap. Do you know the secret coffee handshake? Very well then my child, you may enter and order.

And, may I add, the word sassy should never ever ever be used in conjunction with coffee. Period, end of story. This is so obvious that further explanation should not be required. You may have your cup of joe black as night or sweet as sin or hot as hell, but you must never expect it to be sassy. Magazines for angst-ridden teen girls are 'sassy.' Coffee is not.

Nor should drinking your coffee involve the Gospels. Back in the days when I would occasionally find myself in Rhode Island, I came across Bess Eatons. The coffee is not bad, but I found their habit of putting passages from scripture on their cups a little disconcerting. I'll take mine light without hellfire please.