Ok, so I think I’ve let enough time go for everyone to get a chance to read and vote for their favorite guest entries. Everyone did such a fabulous job and in tallying the votes (including my own), it was neck and neck and neck and neck, but I made an official decision and have awarded the title of Leia for this entry. While they were all crowd pleasers (after the shock and refusal to buy into the fakery petered out on the comments section), Leia seemed to both demonstrate knowledge of the running jokes and history of the diary, but also captured the spirit of the entry. However, because I’m like Bert Parks at the Miss America pageant (ok, I’m totally too young to know who Bert Parks is, but in my mind he looks like Bert Convy) and want to sob ‘You’re all winners to me!’ I will send each entrant one of my prized four Young Ones postcards (which I received in my DVD set, a birthday gift from Esteban). And Leia, because she’s super special, will get a Bad Bar mix CD and something else that will be a surprise.
Thank you to all who entered. You made updating really easy for a week! You all rock! Send me an email with your addresses. So I can kidnap you and keep you in my basement and make you crank out entries for me.
Ha ha. No. I’m kidding.
Ha ha. Really. I am.
Ha ha. Leave the times you’re normally home. Alone.
Ha ha. See? Funny. I’m one funny lady.
And also put in the email if you have a dog. And if it’s current on all of its shots.
Ha ha. Yeah. Put that. Ha ha.
Baransky Barista taunted me this morning through the loudspeaker at Sbux when I drove up.
‘Well, now, I used to know what you ordered, you liked a mint mocha, but now you’ve got your different drinks and you’re all fancy so I don’t know WHAT you’re having.’
I hate that little camera they have. I hate it all to hell. What the hell was she accusing me of? Changing my drink? It’s 89 degrees and humidity that requires a personal squeegee. Or maybe a small portable midget who would give you little midday sponge baths.
Oh, did I just totally skeeve everyone out, thinking about getting a sponge bath from Billy Barty? Which reminds me, in San Francisco, I was walking down Post Street behind a midget. And I was like ‘Whoa’. Midget’. Er’ Little Person.’ Because even my brain voice rushes to be politically correct. But still’ whoa’ midget. Hi. I’m from Wisconsin. We don’t get out much.
Anyway, Starbucks.
So I smirk at the menu camera and say ‘Venti iced tea with a packet of Equal.’
‘Sweetened or Unsweetened?’ She snarks. Because maybe the sweetened tea isn’t SWEET enough for me and I want to add Equal to Sweetened iced tea because that way it wouldn’t add extra calories or something. Because I’m fat, I guess. Or something. This is the only logic I can come up with there. Because otherwise, she’s just so stupid that she shouldn’t even be able to function.
‘Unsweetened.’
She continued barking through the speaker at me. ‘Oh’ we changed it. We changed! It’s new iced tea. It’s like a martini’. Well, we’ll show you when you get up here.’
Christ. I have one thing left in the world that makes me happy. One. Thing. Damned Starbucks black iced tea with a packet of Equal. That’s it. I cut chocolate, bread, honey, pasta, cereal, toast, rice, potatoes, and a bunch of other things that have flour or sugar in them. I can’t eat the Pocky I bought in San Francisco. I can’t eat Pixy Stix. I can’t eat Hob Nobs. I can’t eat Oreos or brownies or canned whipped frosting on graham crackers and I’m not drinking Diet Coke. It’s meat, fruit and damned Starbucks iced tea. Meat. Fruit. And iced tea. And I don’t like meat all that much. Don’t mess with my tea. The tea is possibly the only thing that stands between me and complete uber bitchdom.
I watched in horror through the drive up as they poured my tea into a different glass. The tea was the wrong color. I don’t think they put Equal in it because it was already sweetened with real sugar or something.
And then they shook it. Like it was a little fiesta at 7:15 in the morning. Because it’s not like I didn’t just wake up after not having enough sleep and now have to spend 12 hours at work. It’s not like I wouldn’t rather be in bed, curled up and dreaming as the sun begins to tickle my nose through the window behind me. No. I’d rather be sitting there waiting in the drive thru, listening to ice cubes rattling around as you try to make me feel like fucking James Bond and give me pansy-assed fake iced tea shaken and not FUCKING STIRRED.
So’ the new iced tea? Not so much.
I broke down and got a Diet Coke. I knew McDonalds wasn’t going to start throwing that bad boy around. They know what you want and they know how you like it. They serve it up cold, no fuss, no wait, cold and bubbly to your hand. They knew you’d be back, baby, begging for more. It’s just a matter of time.
Tomorrow, back on the wagon. I’m bringing my own iced tea to work tomorrow. And my iced tea isn’t going to have delusions of grandeur. My iced tea will be happy just being iced tea. Gah. I’m starting to sound like a 1978 self-help book. Mofo Starbucks.
