Bad Coffee, Good Coffee

As I left my appointment in Towson this afternoon, I pulled into a drive thru Dunkin Donuts on Joppa Road to fuel up for the drive back to HoCo. I ordered a large coffee, no room. After paying for my purchase with paper money I slipped the unopened coffee into the cup holder and resumed my trek back south. At the intersection of Joppa and Loch Raven Boulevard my forward progress was interrupted by a red light. I decided to use the moment to savor a sip of my fresh hot coffee.

GAAAH!

Instead of a lovely cup of pure coffee flavor I encountered a cream laden sugary beverage that only remotely hinted of coffee. For me at least, this is undrinkable.

As I waited for the light I pondered my next move. Do I pull a u-turn and return to the scene of coffee miscommunication and demand some java justice?

Or do I simply suck it up and stew about it for the whole ride home?

I opted to stew. I opened the door, dumped out the offending beverage onto the asphalt and tossed the empty cup into the back seat.

As I came back into Columbia my stewing had subsided but I was determined to get a decent cup of joe before going into the office. I pulled into the Starbucks on Dobbin Road. There were two people in front of me in line.

“Can I use this to pay?” the first lady in line asked the cashier. She was holding an iPhone.

The barista assured her that she could and she then proceeded to complete her transaction by waving her phone in front of scanner. The money was deducted from her Starbucks Rewards account.

“Does that work with other smart phones?” I asked.

The second guy in line seemed knowledgeable about these things and he suggested that, by now, there was undoubtedly an Android version of the app as well,

Undoubtedly.

He then added. “Isn’t it funny that they once predicted we’d be driving flying cars by now but they never saw the smartphone thing coming!”

Personally I’m glad the flying car thing never took off.