You Want a What?

Although we may be few and far between, there is a group of us that do exist. We don't have an official group. We don't get money from the government to operate. What we do get are weird looks from people and an attitude of apparent shock when they find out we are part of the group. Yes, I'm talking about us non-coffee drinkers.

I've never liked coffee. Yes, I've tried the flavoured kinds. Yes, I've tried your Cappuccinno. Yes, I've tasted a Moccachino. I dislike them all. Any hint of coffee taste at all and my tastebuds cry foul. And please don't tell me that "You can barely taste the coffee in this Moccha cheesecake"...trust me, I can.

But the worst part of being in this group is when regular coffee drinkers ask you to go get them a coffee and rattle off some strange language that they assume you will understand. This past May at a conference put on by our company I was hanging out in the morning before it started, chatting with a female co-worker. Suddenly we see the owner come walking quickly towards us. He first looks at the girl and then turns to me and says "In the interest of not being sexist, Sheldon I need you to go get me a coffee from Starbucks in the lobby. I want a vente cappuccino." He hands me his Starbucks pre-paid card and runs off.

Now I'm not usually his lackey but I could tell he was in a hurry as the conference was starting right away so I figured I'd oblige (and I wanted to keep my job!). I went downstairs to the Starbucks in the lobby and stood in the long line. When it came time to order, I told her I wanted a vente cappuccino. Now I had absolutely no idea what this meant. They could have given me sour milk topped with cinnamon for all I know and I would have brought it back to the boss. Thankfully she seemed to speak the weird coffee language and I paid using the Starbucks card.

I stood there watching as I tried to guess what type of concotion I had ordered. But my heart quickly panicked when I saw her grab the largest cup they had and proceeded to pour liquid into it. Thinking that size seemed way to big I told the girl "You know, I think that cup is too big. I just want the smaller one." She looked at me strangely and asked if I had ordered a vente cappuccino. I told her yes, but I just need it in a smaller cup. Extremely puzzled she held to the motto of 'the customer is always right' and gave me my vente cappuccino in a smaller cup.

Excited that I had survived this coffee ordeal I grabbed my vente cappuccino and proceeded to walk back upstairs. I passed a couple of guys from our company who work in our Toronto office and they asked me what I had ordered. I told them I was getting it for the owner. The one guy looked at the cup and immediately said "That's not what he drinks." I stopped moving up the stairs, turned around and looked at him. I then looked at the cup to see if it was see through or if there was writing on it as I couldn't figure out how he knew what I ordered. "How do you know?" I asked. "Because the owner drinks vente cappuccino's." "That's what this is," I replied. "No it's not. That is not a vente cup and the owner only drinks vente." Suddenly everything snapped into place and I realized that vente was simply the cup size.

Looking like a complete idiot I now had to go back to the Starbucks and get a different coffee (trust me, giving the owner a non-vente cappuccino probably wouldn't be a good idea first thing in the morning). I gave the coffee to a fellow coworker and went to buy the proper one. Rushing back upstairs the owner was just walking by and I gave him his coffee. "What took so long," was his retort. "Well," I replied, "next time it's probably best to send someone who actually drinks coffee."

I never told him the story or the fact that I spent double the money on his gift card since I had to buy two of them...but that just goes to show, you can't trust non-coffee drinkers to get you a coffee. So the next time you ask me to go get you a double-double cappuccino with a twist of moccachino in a vente cup with a hand warmer, and I give you a puzzled look, that is your cue that I may very well come back to you with a cup of sour milk.