Tuesday, October 23, 2012

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You can TRY and be this cool. However, you will FAIL.

Starbucks, Bruno, Rush, and Teenaged Daughters

So, I have bitched plenty about Starbucks over the years and, thusly, I figyre (yes, I know it's "figure", but it was originally a typo, and I liked how it looked, kind of "Ye olde merry Englishe" style...so I left it.  As you can see, I am an iconoclast of the keyboard) "why stop now?"  So here goes:

The Starbucks drive through (or is that "thru"...at least according to the signs.  I'd like to believe the signs are misspelled  for brevity's sake...or at least to save on the expenditure for additional plastic.  However, I have a gnawing suspicion that it was a corporate decision to appeal to the average American who has the reading comprehension of a 7yr old.  Actually, that's probably not fair...to 7yr olds).  The drive through (or "drive thru" as it shall henceforth be known) is intended for quick service, i.e. (or is that e.g.?), get your coffee and go.  It's a great idea...in concept.  If you're like me, and want actual coffee, it would work flawlessly.  Place your order at the sign advertising their wares, and drive up to the window.  In the time it takes you to drive to the window and proffer up your payment, they have poured your coffee and added cream/sugar (if that's your particular predilection).  Again, this concept works great....in theory only.  Here's why: the coffee.  If you, like me, order actual fucking coffee, the drive thru works seamlessly...its perfection of movement so precise it would make a Swiss watch maker come in his pants (too much?  Eh...point was made regardless).  But, again, that's if you oder COFFEE.  Apparently, when the average American thinks "coffee", they don't think of a hot liquid beverage with a roasted bean base, they think of a thick, viscous, sugary, gooey, carmel, fudge, mocha, whip cream, and cinnamon chip filled liquid dessert that takes fifteen fucking minutes to concoct (funny word concoct.  Say it with me: "concoct".  Yep...I just chuckled).  When THIS sugar infused gut bomb is ordered, it mires the drive thru queue and defeats its purpose.  If you're the sort of person who likes dessert for breakfast and enjoys starting their day with a 700 calorie thirst quencher that you know takes a team of twelve to assemble (no doubt you need the caloric intake because you're on your way to your job of plowing a 700 acre field all by yourself, or, you are preparing to row across the Atlantic like some Thor Heyerdahl wanna be), you obviously have a few minutes on your hands.  So, if that's the case, why in the hell are you in the drive thru?  Go inside and order your drink and leave the drive thru to those of us who need a caffeinated adrenal infusion and are actually in a goddamn hurry.  Since you're a trans-Atlantic rower, you should have plenty of bounce in your step to park and exit your car and make that arduous trek across the parking lot and walk into the Starbucks to grab your team crafted insulin buster.  The rest of us would really appreciate it as we quickly grab our hot, liquid- bean, pulse amplifier and get on with our lives.  So, in conclusion, I propose Starbucks has TWO drive thru's: one that says coffee only, and another that says "non-coffee drinking coffee drinkers here...and Thor Heyerdahl too".  Think about it Starbucks.

-I was watching Saturday Night Live this weekend, and was left with one question: who, in the hell, is Bruno Mars?

-While watching I Love You Man a while back, I was struck with a truism that was a crucial element in the movie: all men, no mater what their musical tastes, have a soft spot in their heart for Rush.  We may be fans of alt, indie, country, metal, R&B, hip hop, jazz, classical, progressive, etc., as our first and foremost musical choice.  But, put Tom Sawyer on the stereo, and well, we'll be grooving right along with it.  There's something in the male DNA, a Rush chromosome if you like, that compels to have varying levels of affinity for this band.  I have the greatest hits album to prove it.  Whether it's the drumming pyrotechnics of Neil Peart, the bass shredding of Geddy Lee, or guitar textures of Alex Lifeson, we will uncontrollably air-guitar/drum the minute a Rush song is played.  We cannot help it.  In fact, if a Dr. Evil type was ever looking into turning the human male population into an army of controllable automatons, he'd figyre* out what it is in Rush's musical vibrations that is hard wired into the XY brain, and use it for nefarious purposes.  Maybe they could simply play a Rush song on a world wide public broadcast and formulate a plan for billions men simultaneously air drumming to be used as a weapon of mass destruction.  So there you go madmen of the world, your blueprint for world domination.  "A modern day warrior, mean mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean mean pride..."  Muh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! (or whatever evil laughter looks like in print)

-Yes, I have 17yr and 15yr old daughters.  So, you may or may not be asking yourself (or "yourselves", should you be reading this is some sort of weird group setting.  Hey, I don't judge...I'm just saying...), what's it like being the father of teen daughters?  Well, it's like this: this photo (warning: it's not for the faint of heart) is the singular most succinct image I can think of to fully explain sharing a home with teenaged, female offspring:

Photobucket

What you are looking at is not, in fact, a partially decomposed marmot I found behind some shrubs in my back yard, but a rather foul plug of hair I had to remove from the drain in the sink located in my daughters bathroom.  I can understand a bunch of hair being in the SHOWER drain (of which I have removed many a time), but this was in THEIR SINK.  Unless they shaved their heads in the sink (and, judging by the hair currently on their heads, I am guessing they have not), I cannot imagine how this much hair got in there.  When I asked, they both sort of looked at me with a blank stare, before my oldest said her younger sister "sheds a lot."  To which her younger sister said, "Yeah.  I kinda do."  So, apparently, one of my daughters is (as I remarked to another a while back) part alpaca.  Needless to say, I had no idea she had genetically mutated on me.  Perhaps she can be a source of family income going forward if I can knit the occasional scarf from her (apparently) abundant coat.  That's me, always thinking outside the box....

*Yeah, I used it again...Anglophile that I am.  

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