Friday, May 05, 2006

Starbucks


S
o I like strong coffee. It's not a crime. Every weekday, I go to the Starbucks™ on Broadway and 41st and order a "Grandé Drip, no room" The staff, on the whole, are very nice. They smile, some of them even remember my order, but the amount of coffee that gets disbursed into my cup varies day to day and it's very frustrating.


Did I tell you I like strong coffee? I don't dilute it with dairy products, I don't order the fancy-schmancy latte-frappe-half-caff-double-shot-mocha-cheeenoo, I just order coffee. I even feel weird saying "Grandé" when all I want is "Medium", but I've adapted my language to produce quicker results. I know full well if I say "Medium black coffee" I’ll be corrected on two counts:


  1. "Grandé is our 'medium'" and
  2. "We don't add milk, that's at the bar behind you"

So I succumb to their language in hope that I get what the hell I want in a timely fashion without reprimand.


Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Today, it didn't. I'm sure that after reading a few of my 'blog entries, I come over as an ill-tempered tyrant, insistent on his own way and unable to suffer fools. That's not entirely true. Actually, I'm pretty easy-going, even when I don't get my own way. Plenty of times, I've put up with things, because causing a fuss just isn't my style. Today, I wasn't in a placid mood. I wanted a cup of coffee. not 1/2 a cup, not 3/4. I wanted a cup. So, I stuck to the drill. Wait for the "barista" (whiskey tango foxtrot on that name huh?) to call "Next in line, please step down" and, with incredible clarity, I presented the code: "Grandé coffee, no room please" and handed over my $1.99. What I got was a three-quarters full "Grandé" cup of steaming hot beverage.


My first suspicions came on the trip to the sweetening station. The cup felt a little light. The place was busy, so I decided on further investigation before disturbing the normal flow of commerce within the store. Sure enough, as soon as I'd pried off the lid, I noticed that my cup nowhere near runneth over. Well, I wasn't in the mood to be caffeine deprived, So I immediately turned around and asked them to fill the cup up please. So they did. Rather anti-climactic if you ask me.

EOF

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