{an embarrassing confession, also known as "how starbucks is ruining my life"}

Friends, I have an embarrassing confession to make.  Here's the story:

{Inversion, Houston}

This morning I had to go into work, and unlike most mornings when I'm in a bug hurry {running late}, today {since it's Saturday and all} I had time to leisurely drive in and even stop at my favorite coffee shop.  And then it happened...

I got up to the counter to order and what did I say?  "I'd like a grande coconut mocha please"...

And I was ashamed.  I felt like the whole coffee shop stopped, dropped whatever they were holding and turned around to look at me in disgust.  How dare I, nay, how COULD I, go to a local coffee shop and use Starbucks lingo?!?!

The barista {after getting over her initial shock, of course} just kindly smiled at me and replied "so, is that a large?"  I was mortified.  I was so mortified, in fact, that I couldn't even get the words out to tell her that it was actually a medium.

Now, as someone who has always and will always prefer a local coffee shop to a chain, even being willing to drive out of my way just to hit a local spot, I can't explain to you how much of a personal failure it is that I have allowed myself to frequent Starbucks enough during the workweek {there's one right at the bottom of my office building} that my brain has gotten brainwashed by their stupid lingo.

So here I sit, large coconut mocha in hand {that I'll never be able to finish because I never order larges} and ashamed that this is what my life has come to.  At least I had enough sense to call it a "coconut mocha" rather than a "mocha coconut" like Starbucks calls their significantly-less-tasty comparable beverage. {that doesn't even make sense, by the way--I mean, everyone knows that the word describing the dominant characteristic comes second--just look at Crayons..."red-orange" means an orange that's reddish, "blue-green" means a green that's bluish and so on.  And Tex-Mex...it's Mexican food with a Texas flare.  The dominant word always comes second.}

As I see it, there's really only one solution to the problem: obviously I have to spend every weekend for the next three months local-coffee-shop-hopping, right?  Yes, that seems like quite an appropriate plan of recovery. 

Relatedly, see this article I found a few weeks ago that talks about how Starbucks is ruining the world {well, maybe it doesn't say that, but that's how I read it}.  It describes sort of the opposite problem from what I have.  Interesting.

Happy Saturday, all.