oh, the humiliation which I have wrought upon myself

I have to preface this story by saying that I do drink coffee from the big evil corporation strbcks, whose name I am abbreviating so that hopefully if someone googles that big evil corporation, this site will not come up. Anyway, I drink coffee there because, hey, sometimes you need a mint mocha, although admittedly no mint mocha will ever compare with the original (Missy will testify to that), and anyway big evil corporation stores are on every street corner. And if they have increased the total number of coffee shops available, I would almost thank them. If I didn't hate them so much except when I like them. I do, however, strive to buy my beverages at smaller places and I spend most of my frivolous income for beverages at a small cafe which shall remain nameless because, hey, I'm there all the time and in paranoia (there are scary people out there, people), I don't want the internet to know about it. At this small cafe, I know the workers by name and they watch my computer when I need to run out and buy something from a bodega and I always ask them if they want anything while I'm running out. And the $3.52 that I pay for my drink is completely worthwhile to support a small business and rent my study table for a few hours. And the bathroom is way cleaner than any big evil corporation bathroom in New York (yick).

So. Story. I was babysitting, and admittedly we looked a bit designer baby with the double stroller and the little wool coats and the cup holders. But we were at this corner and two women looked down at the stroller and one said, "Oh, how cute!" half to me about the kids, who are very cute, and the other one said, to her friend, NOT to me, "They even have little strbcks cups." in a sort of shocked and not-so-pleased way.

OKAY, WE WENT TO STRBCKS! WE DID! I'M SORRY!

But let me explain! Please!

Earlier in the day, the lil' one and I stopped at big evil corporation to get a drink because it was the only thing around. Really! And I wanted a mint mocha and he wanted chocolate milk, which they usually have in little cartons. They didn't have chocolate milk, though, so he ended up with vanilla milk, which is sweet but not the same to a chocolate milk obsessed child. But the vanilla milk was in the stroller when we went to pick up the big bro from school and when he saw it he wanted something to drink too, and it was either that or another chain which sells orange scones which the kids love too much and I would have had to buy those, too, so we went to big evil corporation and got a kid-sized hot chocolate with two cups which turns out to be the way to go because it only costs $1.52 and it is not that much smaller than the next size up which is about $3 and because I knew that lil' one really wanted chocolate milk I mixed the rest of the vanilla milk with the hot chocolate and put half in each cup and this really extraordinarily HOT man noticed the process and we had a short flirtatious conversation regarding how it was quite a process and I left big evil corporation smiling and then this mean woman looked at me as if I were CORPORATIZING SMALL CHILDREN.

Oh, the shame.