It's Just An Iced Coffee

The weather has cooled down considerably in the last couple days. It's been a joy to be able to work in the garden for more than ten minutes at a time, without the fear of heatstroke in the tomatoes.

Now that my brain is no longer vapor locked, I can relay this little gem that happened to me last week:

I went to the local International coffee chain for an iced coffee. I don't go there often, and certainly not for my daily morning cuppa Joe. That right is reserved for the small local shop on the way to work. Anyway, the large chain has a drive thru locale near the Ranch, and I just HAD to have an iced coffee. (Or perish) I have an easy order: Large iced coffee, extra skim milk, one shot of sugar free vanilla syrup. Easy. I placed the order and drove up to the window.

The window flung open, and a very nice girl with lots of teeth, greeted me happily. "HI! How are you?!! I'm really, really sorry, but we're OUT OF ICED COFFEE, and I'm giving you an Americano instead!" Not being particularly savvy with all the kinds of coffee drinks (and not particularly wanting to either) I asked, "What is an Americano?" "OH!", Toothy chirped, "Its a double shot of expresso, watered down over ice, it won't cost extra, and I'll make it like you ordered your iced coffee."

Ooooookaaaay. A COFFEE SHOP out of ICED COFFEE, BUT can offer me iced watered down expresso. And there was hot coffee, in pots, already made. What does Star....I mean, the big chain do? Make special pots of iced coffee? Hell, I figured they just poured already made regular coffee over ice, and that was that. And wouldn't iced watered down expresso be iced coffee? I don't know.

At any rate, I told Toothy that the iced Americano would be just grand, and I had no problems with the order. She happily slammed the drive thru window and set about her Americano making. I entertained myself with a wayward moth, who flew into my car and sat on my hand. It was climbing around thru my fingers as I tried to coax it OUT of my car and onto the outside mirror of the Wagon.

As I finally got the moth on the mirror (without squishing it) the drive thru window flew open, and there was Toothy with a big grin and my Americano. Alas, it was missing the milk, and was black as the ace of spades. I'm totally the last person who need expresso at 6:00 at night without milk. Water it down! Break up a little of that caffeine, willya?! I 'splained to Toothy the milk was MIA, and she giggled, said Ooops Sorry!! and slammed the window again. Wooshing the moth back into the car (and down my cleavage) with a blast of super cooled Star...Big Coffee Chain air.

Seconds later, (as I was fishing the moth out of my bra, where it had been whooshed) Toothy appeared again, this time with the milked up Americano. Ahh.. Life is good. She also gave me a coupon (coopin!) for a free beverage of ANY sort upon my next visit to the National Coffee Chain. I started to object, saying it was no big deal, but the moth, spelunking around inside my tank top, reminded me that these people make zillions of bucks every day, and that a free large drink to them is nothing. So I thanked Toothy profusely and took my iced Americano, and bonus moth, and hurried home as quickly as I could before anything else strange could transpire.

It was a damn fine iced coffee beverage. I was up til midnight.