I know that you’ve probably got a lot of demands on your spending money this time of year, but unfortunately, there is a bit of a financial crisis over at Journalcon HQ. If you have ever wanted to attend a Journalcon but couldn’t or if you enjoy reading about the fall out (or watching the inevitable post-Con drama unfold), consider spotting the event a few bucks to ensure that it continues. There’s more information here, but you’ll also notice that there are some opportunities to either win or outright receive a special edition Weetamix CD as well as a professional print of your choice of one of my photos.
I think you guys know that I wouldn’t be involved in something that was sketchy, and I can assure you that this was pretty much the committee’s worst nightmare for the last six months. Right now, there’s a hotel chain twiddling its mustache and tying Minarae to the railroad tracks. So if you can throw a few bucks into the hat for Journalcon, you can ensure that your good deed has been done for the month. If everyone who reads this page contributes five bucks, we can wrap up the gig early and not worry about them putting Minarae in the stockades.
One of my favorite parts of driving down to Milwaukee for school is that by about Mequon, the 1.5 Liter bottle of Dasani I’ve been slurping for the last 90 miles is starting to, oh how shall we say, become rather anxious. And while the drive back home in these dark pre-solstice days is pretty tedious, I can’t have coffee to keep myself awake or I won’t get to sleep until roughly 10 am the next morning. Despite my rather tenacious addiction to my morning cup of Bux, I am very sensitive to caffeine (which is one of the reasons that the Venti cup of rocket fuel does the job that it does and is OH SO ENJOYABLE) and usually don’t even drink Diet Coke after lunch. However, by the time I get to Mequon, it’s usually about quarter to two, which means that while I won’t get to sleep until about two hours after my bedtime, I ensure that I will still be very alert when it comes time to drive up that grey ribbon of highway up the shore of Lake Michigan. And there’s both a Bux AND a delicious Caribou Coffee at the Mequon exit, as well as a snooty gourmet grocery store where I usually stop for snacks to share with the class (last week, it was water crackers and a very soft goat cheese). I usually stop at Caribou, a habit developed last year, before I realized there was also a Bux across the street (and also because I have a blind spot about spotting chain coffee shops and don’t expect them to be within fifty yards of each other in a suburb twenty miles north of Milwaukee, especially when the city of Green Bay can only seem to scrounge together enough coffee drinking denizens to support one measly Starbucks that is not even remotely near my office). I’m somewhat delighted by Caribou, though, because the baristas are super flirty, they usually have big doughnuts with chocolate frosting in the snack case and their coffee (brace yourselves, fellow Buxians, this is going to hurt) is better than Starbucks. And also, during one magical time of the year, they make the best hot non-alcoholic drink I’ve ever had.
A Ho Ho Mocha.
One frothy swirl of heaven that tastes like snowflakes and chocolate and mistletoe kisses and little blue boxes from Tiffany’s, topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with pink candy cane pieces. The mint tickles your nose and the chocolate makes you warm to the tip of your toes and then at the end of the cup, there is a slurry of chocolate and mint candy that falls into your mouth and you smile because they all lived happily ever after. The fucking Ho Ho Mocha.
I sort of hate ordering it, though. “I’ll have a Ho Ho Mocha please” is not a phrase that inspires a sense of dignity. Also, in my head, I tend to think of it as “Ho Homo Cah” and that just makes me laugh, because I’m 12.
I was ordering it last year until almost the end of March, when they ran out of the candy cane pieces. However, by spring, my interest in coffee starts to wan, so I didn’t really notice that I could no longer purchase my twenty ounces of happiness in a cup. But, as soon as the mercury started to dive below 40, I was ready. Ho Ho Mocha! But no. No Ho Ho Mocha. No Ho, no other Ho, just a Mo and a Cah. Fie on the generic Mocha! Mo Crap, that’s what that is! Not that it was, per say, but once you’ve gone Ho Ho, you have nothing but woe. Er, woe woe. Shit. This is why I’m not a poet.
So on November 1, when Starbucks brought back the Gingerbread Latte, I figured, certainly Caribou will follow suit and have their holiday assortment brewing. But on November 2, when I went in and ordered my Ho Ho Mocha, I was told by the flirty flirtypants baristas that the holiday drinks were coming the following week, specifically November 8th. Brilliant! November 9th was a Wednesday and I could sashay into Caribou (although really, it’s usually more of a scurry. Just you try to drink that much Dasani and hold it for 90 miles. It’s not as easy as one might think) and order my Ho HoMo Cah on the very next week! Oh yes! It would be mine! Yes! Instead, I grudgingly ordered something with Andes mints on it. But it was not the same. I grumbled about next week and how the world started their Christmas shit two months earlier, why does Caribou have to be all full of integrity and moral purpose and stuff. Stupid Caribou. As I walked out the door, I shuffled my feet while a trombone in the background played “Wah wah waaaah”.
Then the 9th came. Oh joyous day! I bounced into Caribou and said “One Ho! Ho! Mo! Cah! Please!” and smiled because oh it would be mine! I could spend my next twenty minutes sipping liquid succor as I sped along the highway. Yes! Yummy!
But no. They didn’t have the cups. Gangs of gypsies put a curse on their baby caribou and they had to feed it crushed candy canes to make it better. Next week, cute flirty Can Do Barista said, and then offered to make me something that would be JUST LIKE the Ho Ho Mocha, except that would be like saying you could take a piece of paper and a box of 24 crayons and make something that would be JUST LIKE the Mona Lisa. Because it’s not, Can Do Barista. It’s not at all. Maybe if I just randomly swapped your mother with another woman who looked sort of like her, that would be ok because she was JUST LIKE your mommy. Or maybe if I just put on a wife beater and sneered at people, it would be JUST LIKE I was Angelina Jolie and then I could chew on Brad Pitt’s lips (ugh, not without a dental dam, thank you very much). So yeah, do that, because I’m sure that I won’t even be able to tell the difference between no candy canes and actual pieces of concentrated Christmas.
I had forgotten the Ho Ho Mocha Hissy Fit when I walked into the store last week. However, Can Do did not. The door had not even closed behind me when he looked up and said “Well, GUESS WHAT WE HAVE TODAY!” And I said “Ho Ho Mocha!?” with unrestrained glee. And then I thought, huh, I haven’t been in this store in an entire week. How did the barista not only remember me, but remember the drink I wanted but didn’t get?
Then I remembered with shame that the previous week, while I did not actually voice the above, I think I did a little shake of my head, scrunched my lips together, and then (and I am not proud of this next bit) unconsciously raised one foot and then stomped my Doc Marten onto the floor.
Really, do not think less of me, as you must remember that I was actually raised by wolves.
However, he said that I was not the only Ho Ho Mocha lover and that others were exhibiting similar Veruca Salt behavior regarding this particular drink. Just the same, I think someone’s got to work on quelling her princessy behavior, at least in public.
Exchange during last week’s non-Race Race Night:
Mo : (holding up the cork from a bottle of Muscato D’Asti) Look at this cork. One end is all fat.
Weetabix: It’s not fat. It has a healthy body image.
Mo : It’s pear-shaped.
Weetabix: I wonder if it has problems… buying pants.
Mo : Dum de dum de dum… um, do you have any pants for me?
Weetabix: It’s Pants Cork!
Mo : Hi, I’m Pants Cork!
Weetabix: Aaaaah!! (laughs so hard, cannot breathe)
Mo : Aaaah!! (laughs so hard, falls off chaise)
Esteban: (shakes head and says nothing)
Don’t get it? Drink three bottles of wine in one evening. It’s the funniest thing I’ve witnessed all week. Wait, no, that would be Pie singing Crazy In Love while playing Karaoke Revolution. I would video that shit and put it online, but then she could retaliate and the world does not need to hear my rendition of Endless Love after singing for three hours, especially with the impossible sliding held note. Either that or I might mysteriously disappear and who would be left to raise our little pants cork?
