How to Order at Starbucks Without Really Trying

by Elena O'Malley


I figured the mind-control rays were set pretty weak and it was safe to go in. I'm not much of a Starbucks person as their coffee makes me nauseous and there are enough decent coffee shops and Dunkin' Donuts where I live, but sometimes though, I get a lame, overwhelming desire for a Frappuccino.  Or I'm feeling lazy and tired and get the hot chocolate instead.  Then I found out they were distributing booklets on how to order and picked up one for the absurdity of it.  Yep.  "How."  "To."  "Order."  What madness?  I picked up the booklet in the "you gotta be kidding me" instinct that I would've thought anybody who approached this booklet had also felt, but then I met someone way-too interested in the whole hip barista language. "Skinny" as opposed to "skim" and "ristretto" rather than "we're so weird that we name the option of getting less hot water."

What?

The booklet even addresses what Janeane Garofalo once referred to as the passive-aggressive re-ordering of your drink by the counter folk.  We're not correcting you, the lying sacks claim, we're using our special barista language 'cause it's, um, faster for us to process orders that way.  The back page of the booklet is a Mad Lib fill-in, so you can order like a barista.  Who wants to talk like a Starbucks barista, even if they do get dental?

I know I should be worrying about something more important than this.  But still . . .

I can see trying to be decent during rush-hour mornings by getting your cash out early and making up your mind before you're actually at the counter, but c'mon.  Does the split second of your day it takes the counter person to mentally translate your "small, half-regular, half-caffeinated, lots of skim milk, not lots of foam, with some of that almond stuff" to "tall half-caf almond wet skinny cap" or whatever it is?  I'd rather just smile and treat the person on the other side of the register as something other than a cog.

Mind-control rays were clearly working.  Of course I want whip on that.  
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