I'm Never Going There Again

So I wanted to get some morning coffee. I was leaving my place early this past weekend and wanted to get some coffee to go. And I'll usually stop at Starbucks. They serve their coffee lava hot but I really like the vanilla powder they have to sprinkle in, not sure if that evens it out for the second degree burns on the inside of my mouth but I like it. The vanilla, not the scalding. There's a Starbucks not too far down the street from where I live. Easy to get to and fast. I don't think I've ever spent more than five minutes in there for an entire transaction. I'm not a regular but when I go, that's the one I go to because it's fast and I'm impatient. And the vanilla powder, I really like that vanilla powder. Well, when I was leaving that one was kinda out of the way for the direction I was going, but I knew there was one right off the interstate two exits up so I figured I'd save some time and just stop at that one. That's what you could call the fatal flaw in this story. So I got to that Starbucks, parked and walked in; first sign there could be trouble...there was a line about ten deep. But I was locked into that choice at that point so lets see what happenes. What happened was it took me a good fifteen minutes to get up to the front to even place my order. So I could feel the rage building. I did a quick count and there were six people behind the counter. Six people! One taking the orders, one at the drive through, three wrangling the coffee makers and one....I don't know. He just seemed to be walking back and forth but not really doing anything I could see. Maybe he was just there to fill in in case any of the other black shirts had to go to the bathroom. Whatever he was doing, it was not making anything go any faster. And they all had headsets on. The entire back of the counter area is maybe six feet wide and then twenty to thirty feet long. I guess head sets could be useful if you were trying to talk to someone at the other end, but what's so important at a coffee house that you'd need a headset to talk to someone twenty-five feet away? "Allan, I need some decaf Sumatra....STAT!" That's even assuming they work and aren't just for show. I guess the girl at the drive through had a functioning one for that and maybe the other people didn't want to feel left out. But needless to say those things did not help the speed of the transaction. While I was waiting I did get to check out everything in their sweets case. The danish looked ok and the lemon cake looked good. But I'm not a sweets person and definitely not a morning sweets person. So the danish and cake stayed right there. And got to watch the old people behind me try and interact with the two little kids in front of me. The line curved so they were across from each other. Does anybody else think that it's weird that old people, at random, can start talking to little kids in a line and everyone thinks it's just adorable? I think it's kind of weird. Old or not, just randomly starting talking to a two year old while you're waiting in line just has always seemed odd but usually the old people get away with it without winding up on Megan's List. And at that point I was two people removed from being able to order so they could have been discussing their thoughts on healthcare reform with the kids and if it helped the line to move faster and didn't slow things up I'm all for it, chat them up all you want. And while I was staring around at the sweets case, I just started looking at the other people in the line and saw someone in line behind me that just had an unfortunate look. It wasn't just for the shirt that was a size or two too small and had some rolls peeking out that really shouldn't. I could see if she was reaching for something and they pop out and say hello, but just standing there it looked like either a long midriff shirt or a very too small normal shirt. Now, I shouldn't throw stones as I am not slim myself. However, I'm aware of my physical limitations and try to dress accordingly but if you have a burning desire to know what a sausage feels like go right ahead. Really, who am I to stop you. Oh, did I mention the shirt was white too. Nice touch. But that wasn't the most unfortunate part, no, that was the neck tattoo. Actually that's wrong, it was more of like a necklace tattoo. Prison green and all around in the position where you would expect to see an actual necklace laying. I couldn't make it out because it was written in some sort of script, which seems to be all the rage for any kind of tattoo writing. Script or old english. Not sure how that came to be the font of choice for tattoos in America's tattoo parlors but that really seems to be the way to go. If you're going you have Mayhem tattooed across your stomach you may as well class it up with making it in old English letters. But it did look like dates were on it so I'm assuming it was commemorating someone's birth and death dates, and what better way to memorialize someone then a necklace tattoo. And it also tells me they're really never planning on having a career in any sort of commission sales job. I don't mean to bang too much on tattoos. I'm not a fan myself. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact I don't feel strongly enough about anything to have it emblazoned on my skin and I'm a total skirt wearing Nancy-boy when it comes to needles. And seeing how that's how you get a tattoo, not interested. But if you are getting one, maybe think a little about placement. Because that wasn't the only one rearing it's head. But let's get back to the coffee and leave neck tattoo to her own thing. I was almost next, just had the guy with the two kids in front of me to order and I could get my delicious venti Pike Place brew and be on my way. But this guy seemed to be ordering the whole menu. And trying to let the kids do the ordering too. Folks, have I mentioned that I'm impatient? You know when that's cute? When you're sitting at your table and you have your own waiter. You know when that's not adorable? When you have ten people behind you in line and the barista can't get your order because he can't understand the two year old trying to spit out mocha chai venti latte with skim....or something like that, hell I don't know I couldn't understand her either. But he finally got the order out and moved along. And it was finally my turn. Now I have to say I set myself up for disappointment. I just order straight ahead coffee, none of the other stuff that goes in it, just whatever the brew of the day was, and that day it happened to be the Pike Place brew, and as soon as I order, they turn around and fill the cup and I'm on my way. Well that was at the other location. Not here. Ordered that at the other location and they poured it right there. Oh but not at this place. I paid and then had to wait for him to turn around and take more orders before he could be bothered to pour an effing cup of coffee from a machine that was three feet away. You waste five minutes trying to figure out junior is saying egg sandwich but you can't just pour a cup of coffee after I clearly said what I wanted and you didn't have to guess if I was saying wombat or mongoose or chicken a la orange or wait for someone else to translate what I'm saying from gibberish to adult? So I'm seething a little more. Did I mention I'm impatient? So I'm getting hot, but not as hot as the coffee I hope to be getting some time this year, but hot none the less. So I'm waiting a little longer and there comes the egg sandwich. I wish he would have called out the order in the same gibberish nonsense sounds that it was ordered in but oh well, you can't have everything. And then he finally decided to pour the cup of coffee after taking a couple more orders. Finally! And I could almost be on my way, I just had to add some cream, sugar and the delicious vanilla powder. I got to the station and put in my sugar and then the half and half. I prefer skim but all they had was one canister of half and half. And then I went for the vanilla. I said and then I went for the vanilla....the vanilla...where's the vanilla? Coco and cinnamon but no vanilla. Oh, turns out they were out of it. White blinding rage at that point. Not only did I waste twenty minutes waiting on one cup of coffee from this slow motion crew of headsets and aprons but now you screw me on the vanilla? Piss off! I'm never going back to that Starbucks location again ever and dealing with that teamwork of slow. I don't care how much I'm dying for coffee. And with that I don't care how much out of the way it may be, I'm going to go to the Starbucks location that I always go to because I know they're fast. Oh, and they always have vanilla.

Chocolate Covered Bacon

So I thought about writing a blog for a while. Mostly thinking, "Really? Do I need to further clog up an already jammed up information super highway with the haunted house of thoughts in my head? Eh, why not." So here I am unleashing a torrent of adequacy at you people. A very good friend of mine had started blogging routinely somewhat recently and she seems to enjoy it. It probably helps that she is a good writer. And has a lot of interesting life experiences to pull from. And is exceptionally talented and intelligent. So what the hell did I think I was going to do? But undaunted in seeing that I figured why not try my hand at it too. Which brings me here to my virtual pencil and paper. Now that I have signed up to have my very own blog there comes a lot of pressure. First among them is what will my first blogging be about? It should be something important and relevant so that I can drown you all with my oh-so-important views of the world at large. So where do I go? Healthcare? Immigration? The War(s)? The Deficit? Chocolate covered bacon? Yeah, that's it, chocolate covered bacon. Let's have a look at that. Why chocolate covered bacon? Glad you asked. Let's take a trip back in time about a week to the State Fair, check local listings. I enjoy the state fair. Let's be honest, what's not to like about fried cheese, elephant ears and getting to see the worlds largest boar in the hog bar. Seriously, 1200 pounds and change. That was one humongous pig! And by extension, a huge set of balls. Which brings up the question... how does he walk with those. Or at least without having them drag the ground. I guess it really doesn't matter because any time I've ever seen one of these obscenely large pigs, they've always been laying down. So maybe that's how they deal with the whole 'balls dragging the ground when I walk' thing, they just don't walk. Anyway, back to the fair and the mystery treat. There's always something interesting, and by that I mean odd, at the state fair in the food department. You have your standard fair fare (I can't tell you how long I've been wanting to use that homophone) like breaded tenderloins, elephant ears, funnel cakes, barbecue, fried zucchini, turkey legs....I think I just gained two pounds writing that sentence. But there is always the new kid on the food block. And it's usually odd. For example, the fried pickle. It's not as disgusting as you might think. Or the fried candy bar. Come on folks, we've all heard of the fried candy bar and as disgusting as you may protest it to be because you say you're healthy, deep down everyone wants to try one. What's not to like, Snickers are great. And I don't get any money from the Snickers people to say that but if they want to come to the table with a check I'm willing to listen. Fried foods are notorious for being delicious, so what's not to like about a fried candy bar? Well if you like to feel like you're getting diabetes the moment you bite into it, go right ahead. For those of you who have never had one, it's very much in the vein of a corn dog, minus the healthy aspects. There is a corndog like coating. More like a pancake really. The candy bar is coated in this, fried and then coated with powdered sugar. MMMMM....MMMMM! Picture that last MMMM....MMMMM in an Andy Griffith voice. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to TV Land right now and watch a few reruns and then come back here and finish. So the fried candy bar is a different sweets experience. I tried it and it wasn't horrifyingly bad. Just not a sweet I think I'd try again. Then there was the fried Pepsi. What? How do you fry a liquid? I don't know but I'm on board if for nothing else the magical part of seeing a liquid fry in a liquid. I'm not going to lie, I was very curius to see this booth when it first came out. Then I realized they weren't doing some kind of Mr. Wizard magic, it was just fried dough with some Pepsi flavoring injected in toward the end. What a rip-off! No magical fried liquid....screw off fried Pepsi booth. You're a fraud with your no fried liquid. I don't know exactly what I was expecting but it wasn't fried dough slightly soaked in Pepsi. That just seems like a letdown. I guess that goes up there with the flying cars. But now let's skip ahead to this years state fair. I had heard that there was a vendor selling chocolate covered bacon. What? Two of the best things ever! I'm not a big fan of sweets, which may not be obvious by my dissection of the fried candy bar, but I do like some chocolate every now and again. And bacon could be the most perfect food ever. Right up there with cheese. If there was a food "Hall of Justice" , bacon would be playing the role of Superman with cheese coming in as Batman. Which I guess by extension would make Robin the crackers to go along with that. I'll have to think about what other super-hero I would assign to what food. Anyway, chocolate covered bacon...where do I get in line! Not that I thought it was going to be the best thing I ever ate but I've liked stranger things, like squid (a little chewy) and 8MM ( a little dry). Now why do I have to take a swing at Nick Cage and his movies? Every third or fourth one is passable. I guess I could have said Snake Eyes or The Rock but I didn't want you to think I was talking about an action figure or a wrestler. So back to the bacon. I was at the fair with a couple friends but I couldn't talk either of them into so much as a nibble. So it was on me to take down this whole order of sad. Now let me set the table as to what the chocolate covered bacon is, aside from the obvious in the title. It's served similar to a chocolate covered banana if you've ever had one of those. The bacon is cooked, covered with chocolate and then frozen till the unsuspecting customer comes up. Enter unsuspecting customer. I place my order and my three slices of bacon are pulled out, placed in a little basket and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Five bucks later I'm walking away from the booth with my treat. I know five bucks sounds like a lot for three slices of bacon you know are going to taste horrible, and you'd be right, but I couldn't not try it, so there I was. I wasn't exactly sure how to go at it but one end of the bacon was left exposed so I guess that's what they're considering the handle so that's where I picked it up and had my first bite. You know what's unexpected? Chewy chocolate. And I don't mean a delicious chewy like a carmel or something. I mean like meat chewy. Ugh, that first bite was awful. But I thought, hell I paid for it, I'm gonna choke down five dollars worth of this destroyed, chocolatey bacon. And it didn't really get any better. You think there may be some subtlety in the combination of flavors that you start to pick up. And you'd be wrong. It's just bacon dipped in chocolate. I guess you can call that a lesson learned about odd fair food. But at the least I have that in my library of tastes for future reference. So the next time I come up against something that is horrifyingly bad, I can say, "Sure ________ was bad, but it's no chocolate covered bacon.".