Confession #1

I know, two posts in as many days. Try not to have a heart attack.

OK, time for some confessions. Number one: I have become the person I used to make fun of. Read on....

I have never been a coffee drinker. I just don't like the taste of it. I don't like tiramisu for this reason, and and I don't like coffee ice cream. I just don't like any of it. I'm sure you do like it, and I'm happy for you that you do. I don't. I'm actually kind of proud of it. I made it through both college and grad school without ever forcing myself to start "liking" coffee enough to keep awake to do all the crazy things I had to do in the midst of doing all the crazy things I wanted to do.

Now, don't think I made it all this time without the aid of caffeine. In college it was diet coke and iced tea. And then, sometime while I was living in Florida, someone introduced me to chai tea. It's funny, I have no idea who did it...and I can't really remember hitting up too many Starbucks for chai in Florida, but I remember having the obsession with it long before I moved up to Massachusetts. In any case...whoever introduced me to chai (maybe it was Laura? now that I'm thinking of it I think it was her...she gave me some of hers in Carytown one day as we were walking and shopping....hmmm....) sent me down a path I can never retrace.

I used to make fun of the people obsessed with coffee, and how they'd get all happy when they discovered some new flavor or new way to have it. The people who could speak in all the shortcuts of the Starbucks lingo: "I'll have a grande half-calf triple non-fat extra foamy caramel latte with a shot of hazelnut please." Seriously? Order your coffee in english. And what's with the sizes? Tall, Grande, Venti? Is Starbucks really trying to pretend like they're spanish? Or italian? Which is it anyway? C'mon! None of those sizes sound small, but I see small cups. Why must it be so hard?

This is what I used to think. After my introduction to chai tea, I've been addicted to it as my form of caffeine. It's just so damn tasty. And Starbucks has a great, very sweet yet still spicy blend. But I still felt justified in making fun of the coffee drinkers, because I would go into starbucks and order either a small, a medium, or "the biggest size you have." And I just ordered a chai. Nobody walks into Starbucks and orders a "coffee." You go there because you want to qualify your coffee with something crazy in it. You want a coffee you'll go to 7-11. But I was separate from the regular Starbucks patrons because my order was simple ("chai"). Monosyllabic, even.

Now, as it turns out, you can get whipped cream on your hot chai. And it melts into the chai, and makes it even sweeter and creamier and yummier than it already was. So my order got more complicated ("chai with whipped"), and the distance between me and those I made fun of got a little smaller. Then I discovered that you could get your chai tea made with nonfat milk, which fit better with my plan to eat healthier and lose weight, as long as I didn't order the whipped cream. So my order stayed about the same complexity ("non-fat chai"). Then I discovered the beauty of icing your tea when it's hot outside and you'd like a cool refreshing drink, increasing the complexity yet again ("non-fat iced chai"). But I still felt some sort of distance between me and the coffee drinkers, as I hadn't figured out the lingo entirely yet. I was still ordering small/medium/oh-my-god-if-I-don't-get-caffeine-I'll-never-stay-awake sizes, and I ordered my non-fat iced chai as "iced chai made with skim milk."

Today, all that changed. I walked into Starbucks, ready to order with the lingo - venti (the biggest) non-fat half-ice chai (half ice because then you get more drink that way, and it stays just as cold and gets less watery when the ice melts). And I found out YET ANOTHER way to sink me to the level of those I used to make fun of: the woman in front of me ordered a SOY chai.

Now, I'm lactose intolerant. So anytime I want to have a chai I usually have to pop some lactaid, which I don't always have on hand (although I try to carry a stash with me). But if they use soy milk, I don't have to take any lactaid. I wish you could have seen the joy on my face as I ordered my venti half-ice soy chai.

But this isn't even the worst! The worst is that as I walked out, I was thinking, "I wonder if they have non-fat soy milk?" I'm almost afraid to ask, because then I will be fully the person I used to make fun of as I order my venti non-fat half-ice soy chai.

But you know what? I'm going to enjoy it soooooo much that I won't even care. =)