This Morning At Starbucks...

To thank my babysitter for helping out, I asked her if I could pick her up something from Starbucks. She texted: “I will have a tall skinny vanilla ice tea latte”. So I went to Starbucks and I asked for a tall skinny cappuccino for myself…and then things took a turn. Here is the transcript of our conversation:

ME: I’ll have a tall cappuccino but with low-fat milk and then I need….

(Pause to pull up text and read it)

ME: A tall skinny vanilla iced tea latte.

BARISTA: Uhhh…

MANAGER: Uhhhh….

ME: What’s wrong? Is everything okay?

MANAGER: What does she want again?

ME: A tall. Skinny. Vanilla iced tea latte.

MANAGER: That’s what I thought.

BARISTA: See…uh…

MANAGER: That’s not a thing.

BARISTA: She’s right. It’s not a thing.

ME: It’s not a thing?

BOTH: Nope.

ME: Is that possible? She ordered something that doesn’t exist?

BOTH: Yep. It doesn’t exist. It’s not a thing. Like, At. All.

MANAGER: I mean, maybe what she wants is a coffeelatte or a chailatte but you can’t have an icedtealatte. And there’s not vanilla in the iced tea. It’s just something that’s not…there. I mean, we could figure something out, but I’m not sure I’d recommend that.

ME: Uh…

BARISTA: Text her back. Does she drink coffee cuz the lattes are really popular.

ME: I don’t know. She’s my babysitter. I don’t know her drinking habits.

BARISTA: Just text her.

ME: Okay.

(Text text text. Waiting signal. “I like both!” response.)

ME: Okay. She likes both, but probably not together. Like not a coffeechailatte.

BARISTA: Uh….

ME: That was a joke. Just fix her whatever you think is popular. Because popularity is important.

(The Manager looked at me questingly, wondering if I was still joking. I gave her a slight nod.)

MANAGER: The latte then. She’ll love it.

When I got home I told the babysitter about the scene. “Weird,” she said. “It’s just iced tea with a little milk and vanilla.”

Huh. After my conversation with the baristas, I thought she was asking for magic.

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