I Just Wanted a Large Coffee

Introducing Uncle Leathers:

He’s a grousing curmudgeon who, If you get him a sweater for Christmas he gripes that it’s itchy and doesn’t match his suspenders. If you offer him a warm muffin he complains that you’re trying to give him diabetes. If you tell him he looks good today he snaps back, “So, you’re saying I looked like crap yesterday?” He grinds on about everything he sees on the 5am news, the noon news, and the 10pm news. He has never had an opinion he kept to himself. He always tells you exactly how it is and doesn’t mince words. He was once asked what he thought about the miracle of childbirth and he launched into a two hour diatribe about overpopulation and how genocide has its uses.

Uncle Leather complains about Starbucks:

You know what really crumples my bunions? I can’t get a large coffee at Starbucks. Yesterday I was at my local Starbucks, the one that’s only a few blocks away, not the one that’s several blocks away. When I finally got up to the register this smug little pimply teen asks me what I want.

“A large coffee,” I said.

“Oh, you mean a vente, he replied.

“No, a large coffee. Get one of those cups over there that’s bigger than your smallest one and put some coffee in it and bring it over here.”

“Oh, that’s a grande.”

“This company started in Seattle, why the hell can’t you speak English? Even Canadians speak English and they’re a lot more foreign than you are.”

“It’s part of our culture and ambiance. Coffee comes from Italy so we think it’s cool to use Italian names.”

“Coffee comes from countries in Africa and South America where you guys buy it for three cents a pound.”

“I’m sure they pay more than that.”

“How about that coffee already?”

“You want that as a latte, frappuccino, espresso, machiatto, Americano or what?”

“I only understood one word in that sentence. I want coffee. Plain, old coffee. Nothing fancy. Pour some hot water over some crushed beans and whatever comes out put that in a large cup so we can both move on with our lives.”

“I think you want an Americano.”

“We’ll see.”

“That’ll be $3.45.”

“Holy crap! I can buy a whole pound of beans for that much!”

“Sir, you’re kinda holding up the line.”

I threw the little shit a fiver and waited for my coffee off to the side of the counter with the other gathering sheep.

I remember when I could sit down in a diner and ask for a coffee and they’d bring over a brown-stained glass carafe and pour it into a cup and didn’t ask me stupid questions. I miss those days. I wonder what kind of interrogation I’ll get tomorrow at McDonalds when my niece takes me for pancakes. Are they still called pancakes?

Written by Uncle Leathers, except that rude introduction Logan wrote, which is full of lies.