Today I fell prey to the Starbucks trap.

I woke up early enough to regret it, and after my outings were completed, I felt drained. I realized then, that I’d managed to go the entire day so far (about 4 hours directly after waking) without eating or drinking anything.

It was then that I saw the holy beacon of caffeine- A Starbucks sign.

Against my better judgement, I rounded the corner and got in the drive thru line, and readied myself to spend an obscene amount of money on a slightly coffee twinged treat, and perhaps a baked good.

What you see here is my purchase, The dulce de leche frappuchino, with a toffee almond bar.

As for this particular starbucks location’s bakery selection, I chose the lesser of 6 or 7 evils, and went with the toffee almond bar, which really tasted like a massive hunk of margarine with a few stray shards of “chocolate flavoured candy” in it. It was really greasy, and It only took me about 3 bites tneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.como decide it just wasn’t going in my stomach.  I did, however, completely inhale the frappuchino, which I hope doesnt become a more common occurance, since seriously, these drinks are soooo full of calories.

Now, I’m not a professional coffee drinker, by any means. In fact, I can count the amount of coffee drinks I’ve had my entire life on one hand (four drinks, five fingers. I’ve got room for one more before I can stop saying that!).  But I’ve got a pretty good flavour memory, and I’ve basically decided that this new dulce de leche frappichino is a watered down version of the caramel frappuchino, which has been the only reason I’ve had any sort of flavoured coffee drink since childhood, when I mistakenly sipped one of my dad’s straight black coffees. I’d never tried something so bitter in my life. BAD IDEA, at least for me.

I’m not quite sure why I don’t like coffee. I just don’t.

It could be because I always acquaint the smell of coffee with the smell of cigarettes, because I’m fairly certain that was what my dad lived off for the first 10 years of my life. Coffee, cigarettes and margarine… and the occasional swig of bourbon.  Sure, I know he had to have eaten more than that. I mean, It wasn’t like he was eating the margarine straight from the tub with his bare hands. No, he always used a knife, and he always spread it on some sort of bread. And then he would it eat it. I remember he used to say “if you can see lincolns beard, its not enough” refering to sticking a penny into the margarine and having the margarine be thick enough that it went all the way up to lincolns nose.  Occasionally he would spread the margarine onto the bread and then grill it on a griddle along side sliced spam, which he had topped with cheese, and then he would make a sort of greasy spam n’ cheese sandwich. Always with a cup of coffee.

Actually, I don’t think I ever saw my dad drink anything other than coffee in those first 10 years. Well, other than that occasional swig of bourbon, which he smelled of way more often than he could be caught drinking it. I’m sure he snuck those sips in while he was outside smoking his cigarettes, returning to the living room and quickly covering up the aforementioned scents with a quick swig of hot coffee, no sugar, no cream, just coffee.

As time went on, he lost the bourbon. He quit drinking when we moved houses. Everything went about the same until a few years after I graduated highschool, when my mom came to my job and told me that my dad had heart failure and was in the hospital. We got there as soon as we could, and despite my father’s obvious discomfort, not only because of the whole heart failure thing, but because he was wearing a paper gown and laying in a hospital bed while everyone gathered around him, he pulled through, and followed the doctors orders.

No more cigarettes. No more greasy spam ‘n cheese sandwiches. And only decaf coffee, in moderation. He listened. And now my dad is back and healthier than he ever was before. He’s in his 50’s, and not only has he lost weight, but he’s very healthy. He has an identical twin brother, who, oddly enough, suffered the same thing about 6 months before my dad did, and he’s no where near as healthy as my father is. Its sad, but he chose to go the route of medication only, whereas my dad changed his eating habits as well.

So my dad no longer smells like coffee and cigarettes, but I still connect the smell with unhealthier times, and that’s probably the root of why I don’t like coffee.

…But I totally just read that starbucks has an orange cream frappuchino that has no coffee in it at all, so.. that may just end up being my summer indulgence. It sounds delicious!

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 1:52 am and is filed under May 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.