The Walmart of Coffee

we’re talking about the major coffee house chain in the world people. starbucks.

while on my last trip outta town, there were no other coffee houses in site and i was in dire need for my caffeine fix.

ahhh shit.

driving down the road in anywhere usa, i see those green letters laughing at me like the evil ringmaster from the circus. it’s gonna be one of those days wherein i have to endure an experience at starbucks, or as i prefer to refer to it, “starfucks.”

i get inside the place and have to wait ten minutes for the two people ahead of me, even though there were two employees behind the counter, and that’s NOT including the manager that popped her smiley face about here and there as if walking to and from some important meeting about a better way to inject the starbucks coffee beans with more caffeine. maybe it’s a myth, but i have heard that starbucks roasts their coffee so dark that they burn all the caffeine out of the bean. so they figured out a way to inject the bean with caffeine some how to make up for it. i guess that’s the story. i think i’m gonna look that up cuz if that’s true, then i am even more disappointed in america for allowing starfucks to end so many beautiful, unique, and creative coffee shop experiences. by that of course i mean all the ma and pa coffee houses, some of which had been around for decades, who’ve closed their doors due to their lack of ability to keep up with the walFart of coffee shops. chalk another one up for the idiots. by my count i believe it’s about 111-111 in overtime and every point here could make the difference that ultimately decides the outcome of our fate as a nation.

after i wait for an unnecessarily long time due to mismanagement, i speak with the girl who was only making orders while the gay man ( i say gay man because it is flamboyantly true, not because i mean it as a derogative remark. i like gay men more than straight men most times. not the little whiney sensitive bitches mind you, just the regular gay guys who enjoy a good cock once in a while. what’s wrong with that? whatever the case may be, that’s just the most obvious description that stands out in my head at the moment.) smiles blindly and blissfully into the screen doing absolutely nothing while the girl makes the drinks. maybe she can’t work the register? maybe he can’t work the machines that produce this caffeine-injected elixir? maybe they both hate their jobs and could give a shit? maybe this is a clue to the demise of “the american dream.” so i begin to tell her my order…

here comes a dilemma that i encounter every time i go to a coffee shop, especially the walfart of coffees. ya see, i have my own espresso (not eXpresso) machine and have been my own personal barista for more than a decade. i know what i want. i drink a triple eSpresso, iced with whole milk. i add sugar to taste, chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon. some call it a breve. some call it a breve machiatta, some call it a triple latte. it’s three shots of espresso with milk and my choice flavors.

now the trick to making it taste fantabulously fan-fucking-tastic, is mixing all the other ingredients in the HOT shots of eSpresso before one puts the milk in, and especially before one puts in the ice. this way all the powders are dissolved. once you put the milk in, you STIR in the ice. why, you may ask? because this keeps the ice from melting and diluting the wonderful flavors you just concocted. now it seems to me that this is only common sense, but when i go out for coffee, it never ceases to amaze me how the happy barista just dumps my scolding hot triple shot all over a cup of ice. i sit with sad clown eyes watching my eSpresso turn into coffee, the watered down version of eSpresso. if you don’t understand the difference, you should never even attempt to find gainful employment in ANY coffee house as you most likely would serve your country better checking people out at walfart. come to think of it, they probably have starfucks in walfart nowadays, which may very well explain these puzzling looks i get when ordering a triple eSpresso.

now i am left with this melted iced eSpresso that i haven’t even doctored up with my chocolate-vanilla-cinnamon giggitygoo. i put in the elements as fast as i can, but they don’t dissolve right away, and so my now melted iced eSpresso never tastes the way i like it; not sweet enough for most of it’s duration, and then WAY too fuckin’ sweet at the end. how can this not make fuckin’ sense to anybody that has worked even one day at a coffee house? jesus we’re dumb, as a country that is. maybe it’s me that’s dumb for expounding upon such trivialities? ahh but i digress.

typically if i have to go to a coffee house of any kind, i will now simply order a triple shot of espresso and ask for the rest when i get said espresso. that is all i order because that way the happy barista will not massacre my nectar with their stupidity, or utter lack of consciousness. they will surely and simply give me a glass with three shots of eSpresso in it. reason being that if i try and explain i want a triple latte, but would like to doctor it up before they pour the milk in, i get looks like i blew up the trade towers.

i order my friend’s double lite mocha latte just as it comes ( she doesn’t even bat an eye because it is on the menu, and i’m thinking “as if this drink is less difficult to make than three plain shots of espresso?”), and then i ask her to put my triple shot in a bigger glass than the one for which she is reaching. i do this because i know what i will eventually make of it and that i will need more room for the remaining ingredients. she looks at my quizzically which is per the norm. she then rolls her eyes, like i am being difficult. like there’s a fucking difference between the energy it takes to get a 16oz cup instead of an 8oz cup. i think it’s just because she actually has to deviate from her brainwashed perspective from the starfucks training manual, by which she was surely indoctrinated. this is where i begin having to use all my self control not to throw something at her, screaming about the ignorance and lack of consciousness she is personifying in the moment. sigh.

while this is happening her counterpart smiles at the dude in front of me, who happens to be using his debit/credit card, and says, “thanks mr. johnson, i hope you have a nice day.” like he knows the guy. look buddy i am not here for you to be my pal. i just want a fucking eSpresso drink. it’s not that we couldn’t be friends, but that is not the purpose of this interaction what so ever. i do not need to be coddled in the line to buy coffee, especially at some corporate pimp of a cafe like starfucks.

as i ponder the silliness of the “faux friendship” the employee and customer now have, the girl working the espresso machines hollers from ten or fifteen feet away “what’s your name?” i’m thinking “as if the place is so crowded they won’t recognize me when my order is ready?” not counting the employees, there were three people in the entire place. heavy sigh. “jack.” i answer. generally if i say “jubal” i have to repeat myself at least twice and then explain where it came from. ughh. i pay the man eight dollars and eighty-six cents for two of these drinks (note: a pound of good coffee costs around ten bucks and lasts me just more than a month with an average use of around five eSpresso drinks a week.) and step back to wait for my order. i give him the buck fourteen left over from the ten-spot out of sheer pity. i know. my own fault.

my order comes up and i ask for some whole milk because that is what i want. to this again i get the rolled eyes. if only smacking someone in the face to wake them up wasn’t a criminal act. it’s a coffee house for christ’s sake and there are many people in the world that enjoy whole milk with their fucking coffee. why the walfart of coffee only has two percent and half and half on the customer side of the counter is beyond me. they should have whole milk, whole cream, half and half, 2%, and fucking skim out for us, no? it would save them time. well they don’t. just 2% and half & half.

i ask for whole milk. he wants to give me a glass. i ask if he would simply ( SIMPLY mind you) pour some in the cup i already have so as not to waste more paper goods. “i’ll just make you a cup.” he says as he smiles that “i don’t care what you say, but since i’m smiling you’ll think it’s pleasant that i completely ignore your request” smile. he brings me my milk with a plastic lid on it that has the little hole in it so as it doesn’t burn your mouth when you drink it, or spill all over you while you drive. i open it up. it’s not even two ounces of milk. i probably require four to six depending upon my mood. i ask for more. this is the part where i almost lose it.

he asks me how many “inches” of milk i want in my glass? “inches?” okay. see we have this measurement of VOLUME as well as distance in society. they’re called either “ounces” or derivatives of the “liter” for most of the world. ahh what’s the difference anyway? length and volume can be the same right? goddamnit. i say “two inches.” the girl goes over to the milk and brings me nearly a full cup, which would’ve been about a six ounce cup or probably four and a half inches. so even though i gave them the specs in inches, she obviously didn’t even understand the length of an inch. fuck.
i had to get out of there right away for fear that their way of thinking might rub off on me some how or that i might retaliate in a manner that would surely land me in the slammer.

damnit. i’m digressing…

so naturally i understand that i caved in and gave starfucks my money. i did it understanding my actions and felt like shit about it. i hope you realize that i am not impervious to being human, or a consumer whore. a fact which keeps me up sweating bullets some nights. at least i understand things used to be different. things used to have more of an individual’s touch to them. i long for those days, most of which were before my time.

i don’t like starbucks for many reasons and that is not so much the point as the statement it makes on american culture. it seems that everywhere i have been, which is nearly every part of the country, everything is this marketed manufactured life bullshit. nothing, it seems is “ma and pa” any longer. all corporate. what we have are designer convertibles, designer clothes, designer phones, designer coffee, designer bikers riding designer motorcycles, designer glasses, designer tits and peck implants, designer chins, cheeks, lips, and ears, designer penises, designer pussies, designer braces, and designer bars for all the designer people who live designer lifestyles.

it’s a designed life. way ta go america. you have achieved an almost completely blanched state of culture. go starfuck yourself.