This first-person narrator will utilize run-on sentences to tell a story, recounting a specific moment and its spinoffs in vivid details, emphasizing the breathless and chaotic nature of the narrator’s state of mind because she tends to pursue tangents, but previously some of her tangents went on for too long, so she has tried to control herself, this narrator did, and she sometimes confuses past and present tense because she gets too excited but she is going to say that is on purpose to contribute to the mood and tone of an aging Valley Girl, but just to be clear, she, this narrator, never was a Valley Girl, a farm girl, yes, but not a Valley Girl, but she really understands, she really does, understand, what can make people go and on always questioning themselves, offering TMI to justify their actions, being unapologetically opinionated, combining the tragedy and comedy of I-know-what-I-should-do-but-it’s-just-so-hard-to-be-perfect, and to make her point she will include a live link underlined in blue, for sure; I mean really, click on it and make sure your sound is turned on. Don’t you just love Hugh Jackman, not to mention the Manhattan Transfer?
My name is Janice, and I have a Starbucks habit, and to make matters worse, it’s not just one thing, but it’s another; actually, it’s several things; this incomparable mixture of being addicted, like relying on caffeine when healthier sources of energy and focus fail me, and like when healthier things such as sufficient deep sleep elude me, and like healthier as in proper digestion and, for sure, healthier as in, now I don’t know if this is cause or effect, but, with caffeine, I tend to turn into a Type A bitch, quick to anger and slow to forgive, quick to blurt “Screw you!” and slow to say, “Sorry. Never mind.”
C’mon. Who doesn’t love The Manhattan Transfer’s version of "Java Jive"?
Sleep disturbance, digestive disruption, and hair-trigger reactions, these are, for sure, the reasons I had been caffeine-sober for six years when, innocently, I caved, in the spirit of let’s-have-a-moment-of-harmless-indulgence, because Connie tossed off spur-of-the moment, “Would you like a green tea latte from the drive-through at Foothill and Lynoak?”, and of course I said yes, wanting to accept the generous offer from my friend, proving that, even though I was six months older than her mother, I could hang with Gen X-ers and, after all, it was just one green tea latte, hey, puh-lease, we are talking about a short, not even a tall, eight hours hours before bedtime, and I vowed to take an extra probiotic, but I had forgotten it wasn’t just the caffeine of one green tea, because, deep down inside, I knew where one, short, green tea oat milk latte would lead, and I could even hear Harold Hill warning the people of River City in The Music Man, the rhyme so close: trouble starts with Tea and that rhymes with C and that stands for caffeine, but nevertheless, in a moment of weakness, I threw 2,190 hard-won days of caffeine sobriety to the wind, because even I thought it was silly and unnecessary to be so sanctimoniously, so completely caffeine-free, so I said, “Sure! I’ll have what you’re having.”
Starbucks is merely a stand-in for all caffeine pushers, and, OMG, soon I was all conversant about Starbucks wannabes near me: Coffee Bean & Tea, Iron & Kin, Last Drop, Lucky’s, The Motley, Nosy Neighbors, Rev’d Up, Sanctuary Coffee, and there’s not time to mention establishments like 42nd Street Bagel and LePain Quotidien where coffee was only the secondary draw, but there are, like, simply so many places to enjoy being tuned as tight as a banjo while spitting in the wind financially, so, for sure, let’s talk about the money before we go too much farther, because I had first-hand knowledge of Starbucks as a budget-wrecker, having dealt with that during my 35 years as a financial advisor when I couldn’t get clients to contribute to their 401(k) up to the company match, because they couldn’t find an extra $200 a month to do that because every day they walked into the office carrying a venti, extra shot, almond milk frappuccino, starting their workday with a 450-calorie nutritionally-bankrupt habit which eventually adds up to $50 a week so there is the $200 which could have been put pre-tax into their pension, but no matter how many compound interest charts I showed them, do you think they chose their 401(k) over Starbucks, but don’t even get me started, because, in fact, I, too, had just succumbed to this seductive habit, because if caffeine wasn’t lure enough, there was this thing about being a part of a larger community, the community of coffee drinkers around the world, from Italy to Istanbul, from Seattle to Sweden, from Egypt to Ethiopa, not to mention the local community, nodding to the regulars in line, all of us waiting for our cups of liquid that wake up our mouths and soothingly slide down our throats as we anticipate the caffeine turbo-charging our brains.
But as I said, the green tea latte was the gateway drug before short turned into tall, with a grande saved for special occasions, not to mention I began to flirt with black tea chai lattes, and I was all, “Let’s experience the Frappuccino® and the Summer Refresher®, “ and I simply had to know how olive oil tasted in an Oleato®, now who would have thought of adding olive oil to coffee, and of course, all of this was decaf until I chose the option of ⅔ decaf, and that became ⅓ decaf, but at least I didn’t get to venti before I saw the folly of my ways, but don’t ask me if I eventually went to all high-octane, and don’t ask me when I’m gonna stop.
Brave woman to try an Oleato®! How was it? Now I want more coffee and I've already had my afternoon iced coffee!