Why McLatte is wrong.

I remember when they were test marketing this stuff and I simply said I don't trust it because with McDonalds you really don't have any effing idea what is really in it. I'm ranting about McDon't-alds......ahem.....so called McCafe.....coffee bar and those people they call Baristas that push the buttons on the machine.

I remember when they were giving free lattes just to get you to try it. I'm going through the drive through and Juanita says not would you like to try a free latte but here is your free latte as I rolled down my window. I said, "No, thanks......I don't want one" to which she replied, "It is free, take it".

I again politely rebuffed her most generous offer like a twenty something college hottie being asked by a zit faced high schooler to the prom but she said....."please, I'm really suppose to get everyone to take one of these". So, being the benevolent sojoco'er that I am I take it and what the hell......I'll taste it and maybe be pleasantly surprised. WRONG. Horrible. Thin. Watery. Sweet. Artificial. Bad. How can espresso and milk get screwed up?

Fast forward to this weekend. My mother AWESOMELY arrives at my son's game to what is going to be a horribly boring hour and a half (I am a JOCO parent who can actually admit this and that I'd rather be someplace, almost anyplace else) with a fistful of McSomething or anothers. She starts handing them out. Do these look like actual coffee drinks or something created in an evil McDonald's lab in Oak Brook, Illinois????

"Here", she says, "I got you guys Iced Lattes".

Like I said to the little drive through gal, "No, thanks", holding up my cup of bourbon carefully hidden in an insulated cup....."brought something to drink". Nothing like a Sunday afternoon half pint of Maker's Mark, right?

She hands them out and explains how she'd never had an iced latte before but wow, she liked these. It looks like barely dirty milk. I take a taste. So sweet.

I tell her, "You've still never had an iced latte". WTF.

Calling that an iced latte is like saying Andre Cold Duck is real champagne. Not only is it wrong but it a disservice to real coffee. Yes, like a wine snob I am a coffee snob. Deal. I thought most JOCO people were too. Maybe not.

I'm digressing but I have two standard Starbucks orders depending on the weather, time of day, and my mood.

First, a Venti skinny latte with an extra shot. Translation for Wyandotte County: The biggest cup you have latte made with skim milk and 3 shots of espresso. 4 shots if you get it iced.

Second: Very simple pleasure. Venti Iced Coffee leave a little room at the top. Translation (against as service to the Wyandotte people reading): Biggest cup they have filled with ice and regular coffee that was brewed double strong and previously cooled to room temperature and then put in the fridge. Then...not filled all the way full so milk can be added. I do this because I want such a scant little drizzle of skim milk added that almost anybody else would put too much. Friends the coffee must be made ahead and cooled. I went to an upstart little coffee shop in Olathe where the cute lady looked at me with a funny look and proceeded to pour hot coffee over a cup of ice......coffee foul.

Seriously McDon't-alds.....what IS in it? That crap is as fake a Joan Rivers face. As fake as Dennis Moore's Blue Dog Democrat membership card. As fake as the telephone number I gave to an old high school classmate I saw this weekend. Do you have to ruin every thing that is good and pure in this world for your own evil purposes? You know what? I guess if keeps other people fatter than me it only makes me look better by comparison, eh? And as a bonus, if it keeps the Starbucks line a little shorter.....all the better. BO. NUS. Further, if you can't order it the way you want it with what you want in it then it is of no use as far as coffee drinks go........NO....McDon't-alds girl....I don't care what your name tag says.....you are not a Barista! Just two weeks ago you were promoted to fries and before that you were wiping child puke and shit off the chairs and booths. Week three on the job doesn't make you a Barista.

Enjoy.