Coffee....Just Coffee

Greetings true believers. During our long and bumpy ride, it is inevitable that we would have to pull over and grab a cup of coffee. I am a Tim Horton's guy, myself... Dunkin Donuts or 7-Eleven on occasion. When there is nothing else around and I need coffee...I will enter the den of inequity that you all know as "Starbucks".

I wander into the local Starbucks the other day and consult the coffee "menu". As we all know, coffee doesn't need a menu, it needs a cup! The line is long enough to give me the required time to peruse said menu. This line is full of 13 year old kids. 13 year old kids have no reason to be drinking coffee in the first place, but that is not my gripe here. Since when do kids like coffee? They don't, they never have. But due to coffee flavored energy drinks, they feel the need to jump in my line and order something cool from the menu that costs as much as 3 packs of baseball cards (which kids of that age should be spending their money on).

I finally make it to the front of the line, and there is an 18 year old "Barista". In my world travels, I have learned that Barista is Italian for "bartender". Now, not only am I ordering my coffee from a menu, but from a bartender as well. So... I get this 18 year old bartender asking me for my coffee order. I ask for a large black coffee. This is the most simple of all orders. The same as me asking a real bartender for a draft beer. The kid looks behind him at the menu and asks where I see that, since he can't figure out how to ring it up. I tell him that I am ordering from the "hidden menu", and question his inability to understand the request by asking, "how long have you worked here? You don't know what a large black coffee costs?" After much discussion with his 19 year old boss, they come up with a charge of 4.19. Yes my fine feathered friends, four dollars for a large black coffee. I laugh, hand Brian Flanagan (go ahead, Google that one) a five dollar bill and am asked to wait at the end of the bar for my coffee.

Aside from the bleeding of my ears from listening to the conversation of 13 year olds hopped up on Mocha Frappaccinos, my wait is uneventful. I see all the frothy, fruity, and downright faggoty drinks being delivered all around me. What I don't see is my large, black, coffee. Do I lose my cool? Nay nay. I wait patiently for my coffee amidst the pain causing dialogue of "Generation LOL". After about 10 minutes, I approach Brian Flanagan once more to inquire about the status of my beverage. He tells me that my order must have been misplaced, and offers to make a fresh one for me, post haste. He says, "you wanted a Venti Dark...was that with or without room?" I didn't think that the coffee and I needed to spend the night together, nor did I think that the bartender had the connections to actually get us a room, so I correctly answered, without room. The question of "room", I later found out from a 14 year old scholar, is whether you need room left in the cup to add cream and sugar, or fill it all the way to the rim leaving no room in the cup for extras. I explained once again that I just wanted a large black coffee. Flanagan reminded me that "Venti" was indeed a large. I jumped his shit and informed him that "large" meant large before he was born, and would continue to mean "large" long after he was dead. Which, if he didn't give me my coffee in the next 2 minutes, would be very soon.

I am now being watched by the hoards of Starbucks whores surrounding me. I am not worried what they think because I am quite sure that they don't speak English. I finally get my LARGE BLACK COFFEE and an insincere apology for the delay. I walk out to the car and begin to drive away. I pick up my large black coffee and go to take a sip (for I have earned that, at least). Just as it hits the back of my throat, the smell of vanilla hits my olfactory nerve. My brain registers this smell, but does not associate it with LARGE BLACK COFFEE. I promptly pull the car over to the side of the road, roll down the window, and pour my Venti Vanilla Dark Without Room out of my Automobile Glass Port and onto the road as I drive six miles to the last bastion of coffee flavored coffee...Dunkin Donuts. I pull to the drive through, order a large black coffee. I am given a total of two dollars. I pay two bucks, get my coffee from a 50 year old woman, and know that my life has been saved. Coffee, my friends...the life blood of America...ordered, understood, delivered, enjoyed.

I am not telling any of you not to spend your hard earned American dollars at coffee houses full of Italian Bartenders. But if what you want is a steaming hot styrofoam cup of quality caffeine, look no further than your local Dunkin Donuts or gas station. These guys have been doing coffee right from day one, and you won't be surrounded by people that don't need to be drinking coffee anyway. Until next time, true believers....Stay Salty.

-Salty Dog