Mastering Spoken Coffee

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published September16, 2024] ©2024

This year I’ve made it my goal to master CSL – Coffee as a Second Language. 

I don’t have to tell you what a social disadvantage it has been to live in a place with so many good coffee houses and not speak Coffee.  

Of course, the main reason I haven’t learned it is that I don’t drink coffee. I love the taste and aroma but the family caffeine sensitivity has my hands shaking before I’ve taken a second sip.   However, as I am often reminded, you can get decaf versions of pretty much everything on the menu.  Although a triple shot espresso decaf would probably defeat the purpose.

While I certainly agree with my friends that coffee houses are an ideal place to meet, I’ve never frequented them enough to really master spoken Coffee.   That’s because the menu scares the daylights out of me.  The French may not be very tolerant of people who massacre their language but they sound like Barney the happy dinosaur compared to coffee drinkers stuck in line behind someone who does not speak Coffee.  The caffeine fiends are ten minutes past needing a fix, the tremors have set in, and anyone who holds them up is in critical danger of being fed into the bean grinder. 

Would that I was kidding.

Attempting to avoid becoming a new instant coffee drink if the clientele behind me seems unusually hostile, I tend to smile brightly at the barista and chirp, “I’ll have what that person just had in a decaf.” 

Unfortunately, this doesn’t keep them from asking you more questions. Lots more questions.  The milk options alone are terrifying.  In fact, I think that if you factored all the possible combinations and permutations of coffee drinks, the number would be in the bazillions. 

But the problem with spoken Coffee is that it is a language with an unbelievable number of dialects.  For example, there’s the Frappuccino-Macchiato dialect from the Sucrose region of Italy.  Only serious linguists and/or pre-diabetics really understand it.

And just when Coffee was already an incredibly complicated language, they’ve thrown in Fair Trade, i.e. that the farmers who grew the beans were paid a fair price.  Was I born yesterday? I’m sure there are standards for this but the cynic in me still wants to see sworn testimonials from the farmers.  Better yet, can I call them in person? 

And of course, we now have the option of “organic.”  I kind of hate it when they bring up that word because it immediately raises the specter of what’s in the non-organic.  Should we be thinking salmonella outbreaks in egg farms in Iowa?  One thing is clear:  if it’s fair traded and organic, we’re going to pay more for it. So I’d just like to know for sure those South American coffee farmers have 401ks and I’m not drinking chicken doots.

But just when you think you’ve miraculously gotten out of the ordering process alive, you discover that when your drink is ready, they sometimes don’t call you by name but by what you ordered.  The short hand name of what you ordered.  I have no idea what I ordered.  I just hope it really IS decaf.  And preferably has whipped cream on it.  I have let my coffee order get stone cold for fear of taking someone else’s drink by mistake.  Because if you think coffee drinkers are cranky being in line behind a non-Coffee speaker, don’t even think what would happen if you accidentally took their vente grande small cap no foam dolce.

I have to confess that I do truly envy people who can drink coffee, especially as a way to wake up quickly in the morning, or revive themselves at 4 p.m. as they’re about to slump over in a meeting-induced coma.  I don’t usually achieve sentience until about ten in the morning under the best of circumstances, and as for those work-day afternoons, I’ve often nearly severed my tongue biting it to keep awake.  Fortunately, I am now retired and can be as perpetually foggy as I want at 4 p.m. Or better yet, just take a nap.  Being awake can be really over-rated. 

My friend Amy’s mother, Toni, has been lobbying her local Starbucks to introduce a new drink, the mocha valium vodka latte.  Now this is a drink I could get my head around.  I wouldn’t even need this drink in a decaf.  A nice simultaneous upper and downer, it just falls off your tongue when you say it.  Of course, you might fall on your head after you drink it.  But it has the added advantage that within minutes, you don’t care if you speak Coffee or not.

 

 

 

Habits Of Annoying People

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published September 9, 2024] 2024

Hi folks - for the first time in 530 columns, I'm inviting the readership to join me for a Whine and Cheez Fest. Get your lists ready! So much to complain about, so little time!

Of course, I've always been a world-class whiner. (Everybody has to have a skill.) And some of the items on my list (below) of Habits of Annoying Fellow Humans have been the subject of entire columns already. But then it occurred to me: why shouldn't my readers, who don t have the luxury of a public forum, be able to whine too?

I confess that this particular column was inspired by one of my all-time top annoyances: the Reply-All option on email invitations. Even I, Technomoron to the Stars, figured out pretty quickly that even though all 75 invitees are listed, you should really only reply to the host.

Of course, many group invitations now are sent as blind cc's or otherwise hide the guest list. But alas, not all.

Maybe the host wanted you to know, as a courtesy, who else was invited. Or maybe they are as big a technomoron as me. But if they do that, they should probably note: "Please reply only to sender."

The invitation of which I speak went to 75 guests and resulted in some 43 Reply-All replies. So you're probably surmising - correctly - that this was an older crowd. But still, a number of the replies qualified as over-sharing. "Sorry, I can t come. I have to prep for my colonoscopy that night."   Or even some pretty personal chat about the responder's life (their kid was finishing rehab and they were very hopeful.)

But it got me thinking about all the other things that annoy me about the world I live in besides Reply-All replies. So here's a list that immediately comes to mind:

People in front of you in line at Gelsons salad bar who take one teeny item from all 50+ bins.

Family members, including the dog, who suddenly change their food preferences after you've stocked up on what they liked before (which, by definition, was not available at the place you usually shop). (We're talking about you and that particular brand of Cinnamon-Raisin English muffins, Olof.)

Miscreants who park in the middle of two spaces in grocery store or other parking lots. It's always the spaces up close.

Technology. All of it.

TV ads that admonish: "Do not take this drug if you are allergic to it."

Phone calls selling solar. (I thought of changing our phone message to "Hi, you've reached Inga and Olof. And no, we don't want solar.")

The new typeface in the San Diego Union-Tribune and La Jolla Light. Feels like a 3-point font!

People who say they can text without anyone at the table knowing. (Um, no you can t.)

People who take non-emergency calls during restaurant lunch dates. (There's this great invention called "voice mail." )

People who, right before they take that non-emergency call, say, "I ve got to take this."   (Um, no, you really don't.)

Not being able to find a seat at a coffee shop because they're all taken by people with laptops who aren't drinking coffee.

Not being able to figure out which small white fluffy dog is yours at the groomer's holding pen when they all want to go home with you.

Drivers who do not signal. (I mean, seriously folks, it's not that hard.)

Intermittent technical problems which by definition will not manifest themselves when anyone with the power to fix them is present.

Upselling from dentists, vets, dermatologists, and pretty much everyone. It seems have become the national pastime. 

Parents who tell their kids to get a ride home from soccer practice. (Special place in hell for them.) The kid never lives near you but you can't just leave him at the field (however tempting). 

Having to change passwords every 90 days particularly on sites you only use maybe once a year and for which you truly don't care if your information on it is accessed.

Passwords that have a number 1 or letter l, or zero or letter 0 in them. (Should be outlawed.)

People who don't respond to invitations.

People who respond to invitations that they re coming and then cancel at the last minute for what is usually a really flaky excuse. 

People who respond to an invitation with "I'll try to stop by."   (No, please don t.)

Toilets at other people s homes that I can't figure out how to flush.

People who drop their t's when talking ( "Alana"  for Atlanta, or "imporen" for important). Amazingly, even newscasters do this. 

Wordle - you have four of the five letters but the 5^th letter could be one of six options and you only have two more tries. 

Smoke alarm batteries that start beeping that they need to be replaced at 3 a.m. (Are they programmed to do this?)

Idiots with clear death wishes who walk behind cars that are backing up. (Not everyone has those beeper things!) Or is this natural selection at work?

And finally (and this one really annoys the heck out of me): Your husband getting the Saran wrap roll messed up.

So now, let s hear yours. (No politics please.) I think we d all agree that the world is an incredibly annoying place. I'll be happy to run the responses (anonymously, of course).