Gas Station Cappucccino Junkie
2000-04-19 08:13:08
I didn't want to admit it for a long time. Sure, I stopped at the gas station every morning. OK, I was noticably cranky until after I had made this trip. Maybe I did think the real coffee at work suddenly tasted funny.But today, I had to stare my demon straight in his frothy milklike substance covered face and acknowledge that I have a problem. I am a gas station cappuccino junkie. I know this is something I should be deeply ashamed of. I know in my snobbish heart of hearts that real coffee drinkers everywhere would turn up their noses and walk on the other side of the street to avoid me if they knew. But it's just so frothy! And so sweet! How can such a joyous substance be evil? That's what I would have said yesterday. Today, though, I found myself going for the Banana Nut Cappuccino. I could rationalize my choice. It was early. How can I be expected to pick a good flavor of cappuccino before I have had enough cappuccino to make any intelligent decisions? Every other morning, I've looked at the Banana Nut, shuddered, and picked something saner, like Chocolate Mint, or Toffee (It's Toffee Coffee! Gotta love it!). Some subconscious part of me dedicated to self preservation knew that Banana and Coffee together in one mouthful just isn't natural. Today, though, I was feeling reckless. I looked at the Banana Nut, and thought, "Maybe it isn't so bad. They wouldn't offer it as a choice if it was bad, right? The scientists at Gas Station Cappuccino Laboratories slaved for months to think of these combinations. They must have eliminated all the bad flavors during their beta testing, or something. Maybe I'm missing out on something really really good." So I filled my 20 oz cup, and paid my 99 cents. (One advantage to living in the middle of nowhere: you can get shitty coffee for a song. Many mornings, the cashier has offered to pay for my coffee, if only I'll do my Gospel rendition of "Pretty Fly For a White Guy.") I took one sip, and woke up enough to realize I had made a horrible mistake. "Gaah! What the hell is this? Banana Nut? Autopilot Brain, are you trying to kill me?" If Hostess made banana Twinkies, and you let one soak in a cup of coffee overnight, then collected the liquid that ran out of the banana snack cake when you squeezed it, added some nondairy creamer and frothed the mixture a bit, this is almost exactly what this would taste like. To get the exact flavor, you would have to sprinkle a few extra cups of artificial banana flavoring powder on the top. Chemical Banana to the nth power. Ugh. But, I really needed the caffiene, so I drank it. This is when I realized I had a problem. No sane person would willingly drink Banana Nut Cappucccino after establishing that is really was as vile as it sounded. Then, I started thinking. No sane person would be drinking gas station cappuccino daily in the first place. No sane person would find themselves in a situation where Banana Nut was the only flavor out of ten they hadn't had twice in the last three weeks. I'm thinking of forming a support group. It may already be too late for me, though. As I drove home, I thought, "You know, that White Chocolate Caramel doesn't sound so bad anymore."
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