Must. Have. Caffeine.

I had to deviate from my usual morning caffeine ritual today so that I wouldn't be late to work. My usual routine consists of waking up, turning on the Saeco espresso maker to let it heat up while I take a shower, then making myself and Holly some dee-lishus double lattés. I used to drink whole milk lattés, Holly prefers skim. We settled on 1%. That way neither of us are happy, which is how it should be because the only thing worst than two unhappy people would be an unhappy person having to drive to work with a happy person.

When I can't make my own latté I stop at Starbucks. Please, don't send me emails telling me that I'm a corporate sellout whore. Starbucks has good espresso. Their quality control is high, the coffee is nicely roasted and their baristas are well trained and friendly.

That isn't to say that I don't have nitpicks with the Starbucks MegaMegaCorporation. Just like any other Big Corp, it's overrun with lawyers, which is evidenced by the fact that my cup and sleeve has no fewer than three lawyer-approved warning disclaimers. First, this warning appears twice, on the cup and the sleeve: "Careful, the beverage you're about to enjoy is extremely hot." Duh. And people, please, let's all try to remove the word extreme from the American English lexicon. I propose that we replace it with a more sublime adjective, like passionate. That asinine label would then say: Careful, the beverage you're about to enjoy is passionately hot. Now that's a coffee you want to drink!

The other disclaimer comes from Starbucks' current advertising campaign, The Way I See It, in which they are printing a series of humanist quotes on their cups. I bet you didn't know that because the sleeve nicely obscures most of the quote. Below the quote is this disclaimer: "This is the author's opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks." Most of us have enough brain activity to know that corporations don't have opinions, but why is Starbucks (or its board members, officers or employees) disclaiming the viewpoint? If it's good enough to go on your cup, it should be good enough for you to say "we believe in that." Otherwise you are just saying that you are a poseur mega corporation, that you just want us to think your CEO is Dudley Dooright, but in fact all you want to do is sell us coffee. Yes, I know: I just hit the proverbial nail right on the proverbial head.

Anyways, I got a regular (whole milk) latté for myself and a skinny for Holly. That got me to thinking about what your coffee says about you.

• Regular Quadruple Shot Latté: I Love Coffee Like Elvis Loved Donuts.
• Regular Latté: The perfect drink. For people who want to live life to the fullest. (This is my drink.)
• Skim Milk Latté: I'm better than you because I can drink this crap and you can't.
  
• Half-Caf: I have issues. I can't make up your mind. I need help.
• Decaf Skim Latté: It's like sex without the spanking. I mean, what's the point?