Brew Ha-Ha

Life in the Boomer Lane would like to go on record as saying that she is no fan of Starbucks. She finds the coffee bitter, over-brewed, and served too hot. However, she does understand that most True Americans do not share her sentiments, since she knows they spend most of their waking hours standing in line, waiting for their grande lattes and their venti caramel macchiato with whipped cream and double shots of caffeine.

LBL would never have believed she could feel sorry for the behemoth barista brewery, but she now finds that she does. In the last few months, Starbucks has been the target of undeserved hostility from all fronts.

It started during the 2015 holiday season when they unveiled their bright red holiday cups. Good Christians were appalled and incensed. “Why does Starbucks hate Jesus?” they asked. “Put Jesus back into my coffee, where he belongs!” they demanded.  LBL was a bit mystified about why a red cup would be slam against one’s religious beliefs. She was also mystified as to why Jesus belonged in a coffee cup.

The answer was that, in the past, the coffee shops had featured cups with more iconic Christmas designs like snowflakes, ornaments and wreaths. No one ever complained about that. So, LBL had to conclude that snowflakes, wreaths, and ornaments expressed the true meaning of Jesus and the religious movement he inspired.  Without these religious icons, the simple red cup was a mere sham.

In a related development, Dunkin Donuts immediately unveiled its own holiday cups, festooned with wreaths, trees, reindeer, stars, wise men, presents, Jesus, Santa, Macys, crosses, ornaments, credit cards, Mary, and a street map of biblical Bethlehem.  “We were planning this anyway,” said the CEO of Dunkin.  We don’t hide from the true meaning of Christmas.”

People had barely enough time to forget the Starbucks Christmas fiasco when, in early 2016, articles appeared informing everyone that some Starbucks flavored drinks contained up to 25 teaspoons of sugar per serving. That’s three times the amount of sugar in one can of coke, and more than three times the maximum adult daily intake recommended by the American Heart Association. It’s also even more than the ants eat every spring in LBL’s pantry.

The biggest culprit was the Starbucks ‘hot mulled fruit grape with chai, orange and cinnamon,’ boasting 25 teaspoons of sugar. LBL cannot imagine that chai, grapes, oranges, and cinnamon can be combined in any way whatsoever to create a drink that contains so much sugar or that could be palatable to anyone no matter how much sugar was added.

Even Dunkin Donuts ever-popular ‘iced donut double-fried latte,’ made with crushed donuts, double cream, and extra icing, doesn’t contain that much sugar. Dunkin began selling their special donut lattes two for the price of one, touting, “You can eat two of these and still not get the same amount of sugar as one of those other things that those other guys sell!”

Then, a double-whammy occurred just a few days ago, when a  Florida man retrieved his grande white chocolate mocha and noticed that, instead of his name printed on the cup, he saw ‘diabetes here I come.’

The man went into a tailspin/rage against Starbucks, because two of his sisters are suffering with  diabetes, and he didn’t think the message was funny.  LBL wonders why, with diabetes in the immediately family, he would be ordering a white chocolate mocha anyway, but she supposes it makes about as much sense as anything else in this election year.

The second part of the double-whammy involved the esteemed governor of Florida, Rick Scott.  Scott was having his own problem at a Starbucks, when he was innocently awaiting his turn at a Gainesville Starbucks.  There he was accosted by Cara Jennings, a woman who went into a tirade against Scott for not doing enough for the people of Florida. 

Scott’s response video, entitled “Latte Liberal Gets An Earful,”  shows Jennings calling Scott “an asshole and an embarrassment to our state” and berating him for not doing enough to help working people. “A million jobs? Great, who here has a great job?”

On the video, a male voice aks in response, “Who has a great job? Well, almost everybody – except those that are sitting around coffee shops, demanding public assistance, surfing the Internet, and cursing at customers who come in.”

And here we have it, the ultimate put down of Starbucks aficionados: religion-hating, sugar-gulping, government assistance-grabbing, potty-mouthed, computer-addicted types.

Scott has announced his intention of putting walls around all Starbucks emporiums in Florida and denying voting rights to anyone with coffee breath.  A Dunkin spokesperson has denied that its clientele are anything like that of Starbucks.  “Our patrons are legal, employed, and don’t sit around all day on their laptops. We work hard to make Dunkin as inhospitable a place as possible. You wouldn’t ever want to lounge around in one. That’s not the American way.”