Does Starbucks sell cow juice?

Why would you ever be evil to the people who serve you food? That is just tempting the devil in my book. And people tempt the espresso gods all the time up in a Starbucks.

I'm waiting VERY patiently during the 8-9 a.m. rush hour the other morning. There is a crush of traffic and the line is in that "register-to-door" phase that identifies a successful and happening Starbucks. Well, that, or a store with terminally bad set of baristas. In which case the crowds soon solve themselves.

I'm dying for caffeine - despite my experiments in the home mocha trade - and I'm out of milk at home.

I'm waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I could have milked a cow and made this mocha myself. I do know how. I've even milked a goat. I've got mad skillz.

Finally, I'm one person from the register. One partner on register, two on bar, slinging drinks as fast as they can. Short-handed this morning. Typical. Anyway. The barista on register is one of those sweet old birds that's been around for a zillion years and has forgotten more about Starbucks than most kids will never learn.

I'm standing there. Clenching. Trying not to lose it before I can get some caffeine in my system and deal with the screaming howler monkeys that blanket the floor of this Starbucks like the floor of an Amazon rainforest (I hope they all get swine flu). And for some reason (maybe I ran over a small child last night?) the drama drops like a ton of bricks.

The man ahead of me totally freaks out. Over hot milk.

Yes. Not pastry. Not breakfast sandwiches. Not the fact that he can't get an Old-Fashioned Donut at 8:47 a.m. because they're all sold out. Not even the fact that he'd been waiting in line for 8 minutes.

This insane creature who was clearly put on the earth just to make my morning non-caffeinated morning worse than it already is wants HOT MILK.

But not just ANY hot milk. Hot milk mixed with hot coffee. As he proceeds to yell repeatedly at this chipper old barista.

This is the conversation, and I swear to Shiva, it was only the thought that I wouldn't last three seconds in prison that kept me from from picking up a package of those Starbucks macaroons sitting by the register and bludgeoning him to death.

MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "Hot milk!"

The old girl was doing a good clip, so she didn't even have time to greet him before he stepped up rapped out his order for lactate juice. I heard "hot milk" and leaned in. Because you never know when an #sbuxdrama situation will develop. Although I was praying it wouldn't. I seriously needed a mocha.

CHIPPER CHESSIE: "You want a hot chocolate?" Because to MY knowledge, and baristas please correct me if I'm wrong, Starbucks doesn't have plain old "hot milk" on the menu...


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "I want hot milk."
CHIPPER CHESSIE: Sighs, and I realize that there are people having far worse mornings than I am. "But what do you want with it?"


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "HOT MILK. IS IT THAT HARD?"
CHIPPER CHESSIE: "We have milk. I can give you a cup. There's more over there. But What do you want? Do you want hot chocolate, a latte, a mocha, coffee? What?"


And now he gets really pissy. And before you ask, he wasn't foreign, speech impaired,  using a cancer kazoo or in any way hampered in his ability to communicate in the English language. He was just a total and complete jerk. 


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "I want you to take a cup. I want you to put some damn coffee in it. And I want you to take some milk. I want you to steam the damn milk. And I want you to put HOT MILK IN THE HOT COFFEE."
CHIPPER CHESSIE: "Okay."

She's pissed off beyond reason. I can see it, because she looks like she's about to fold the twenty he threw at her into some sort of scythe and cut his throat. But she leaves the money on the counter where his greasy paw is, gets a cup of drip coffee and asks one of the baristas on bar to steam some fresh milk.

Then, she makes a production of putting a sleeve on the cup and says "Please be careful. This is very hot."


Which of course sets off round two of this little passion play.



MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "This is too hot."
CHIPPER CHESSIE: I swear to Kali the look she gave him would have melted glass, but she just calmly picked up another cup, slipped the paper holder off, slipped the new cup on and gave the cup back to him. "There you go."


MARVIN THE MILKMAN: "Thank you." I was astonished he had the grace to be polite.

Remember I said he paid with a twenty? I guess he tried to be polite and leave a tip, but Chipper Chessie didn't want any of his money. She gave it all back. And he left a dollar on the counter - and she pushed it back at him, saying "No. You gave me too much."

This man would have tried the patience of saints. I was praying the coffee exploded or something, but that probably would have taken me out as well.