DJ Hadoken “the coffee connoisseur” 7 has this to say:
As I mentioned in the New Years post I made just before this one, my Slimy Gooey Banana Synchronicity anecdote is apparently a highly regarded work of non-fiction, as it now shows up when people search for “slimy banana”. So I felt like I should follow it up with another food-related anecdote.
I have not been to a Starbucks in years. But recently, my friend gifted me a Starbucks drink ticket and food ticket. So, the other day, while I was out-and-about for New Year’s festivities, and happened to pass by a Starbucks, I decided to take the opportunity to enjoy the gift from my friend.
What I ordered doesn’t really matter. But just like I hardly ever go to Starbucks, I hardly ever have any reason to write about Starbucks, either. So I’ll give you a little mini-review about what I ordered.
First, the drink. I wanted to make sure I used up the entire value of the drink ticket. So I ordered the most expensive drink I could spot on the menu: the “Espresso Affogato Frappuccino”. It should just be called the “Espresso Whipacreamo-ccino” because that’s all it was. An egregious amount of whipped cream with some coffee injected into it.
And considering it was the most expensive drink on the menu, I expected it to be larger. Starbucks must now be a husk of its former glory (or something). Because I remember the Frappucinos being bigger and there being less whipped cream and more COFFEE. I’m not on the up-and-up with Starbucks, but this wasn’t the same Starbucks that I remember and stopped going to.
The straw was made out of “eco-friendly” paper. As you would expect from paper, it became so soggy that it crumpled on itself and stopped functioning as a straw. No “problem” though, because there was barely any coffee to begin with and the whipped cream was thick enough that I could just scoop it up with that soggy stick of paper that had initially been a straw.
Don’t correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember a time when we were encouraged to use recycled plastic and/or recyclable plastic as much as possible, in order to reduce society’s reliance on paper products and thus “save the rainforests”. What ever happened to those rainforests, anyway? Are they still around? Or did they all disappear and there’s no point anymore in saving them, so we can just make everything out of paper again?
Oh yeah, and they didn’t even write a message on the cup, either. Have they stopped doing that, too? ...I just ran a search about this and it seems like they did, actually. But there are recent (from a few months ago, in 2024) articles online talking about how they might be bringing it back again. NOW YOU KNOW.
For the food ticket, I ordered the “Sausage Pie”. Which is just a sausage wrapped in some pastry bread. No complaints about the “Sausage Pie”, since you can find those just about anywhere. The size and price were just about the same as you’d find anywhere else (I guess).
This particular Starbucks was pretty small inside, but they had an outdoor eating area just in front of it. I had passed by it a few times during the day. It was full of customers. At one point, I noticed that some of the staff were moving some tables underneath the overhang and saying something to the customers. I assumed this was because they were getting ready to close for the day. I would realize later that this was not the reason that they were moving the tables.
And about the customers, I would say about 90% of the people I saw were young, apparently single, women. That’s not a bad thing. But I wonder why this location is so popular among that particular demographic, considering what I’m going to elaborate on further down in this post.
It was still open when I visited in the evening. There were not so many people, but still enough that I could not find a seat inside and had to walk with my tray to one of the tables outside. There were a couple of “heated parasols” outside. Just imagine a metal trashcan with a tall metal pole sticking out of it and a small metal “parasol” attached to the top of the pole. A bunch of heat is radiated from that metal parasol, hence, “heated parasol”.
It was cold outside, so, naturally, I chose the open table that was next to one of those heated parasols. I sat down and snapped a photo of my food on the tray. I sent it, along with a thank you message, to my friend. I then proceeded to enjoy my food.
To my left, there were some of those young women customers I mentioned, chatting away. I focused on my smartphone as I ate the “Sausage Pie” and drank the “Espresso Affogato Frappuccino”. At one point, a little further off to my right, an older, disheveled and crazy-looking gentleman sat down on a ledge nearby and started babbling to himself loudly. And I think I may have noticed a glob of chocolate from some other customer’s order that seemed to have spilled onto my tray.
This was all pretty much standard-fare when it comes to big city life. So, for the most part, I was unfazed and focused on my smartphone and enjoying my food. A little later, the young women left and the older, disheveled and crazy-looking gentleman stopped babbling loudly to himself and went off somewhere.
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I remember examining the cup a few times to see how much coffee was actually left in there. Each time, I would notice that glob of chocolate that had apparently spilled onto my tray from another customer’s order. It looked like chocolate fudge with some white stuff on it, that I assumed was whipped cream or some frosting of some sort, considering the egregious amount of whipped cream they had shoved into my drink.
That glob of chocolate was rather large. It looked pretty tasty, actually. What if I just stuck my finger in it and tasted some? After all, at the moment, nobody was around, anyway. But now that my attention was on this glob of chocolate, I started to contemplate why I had not noticed it sooner. It was large, but small enough that it would fit under the plastic cup that my drink was served in. So perhaps that’s why I had not noticed it before.
But then I further contemplated, wouldn’t the staff have noticed that large glob of chocolate before they put the cup down on top of it? I looked at the bottom of the cup. It was clean, like nothing had ever touched it. Not even traces of that white stuff on the bottom.
So I thought that maybe it was actually like some piece of a not-so-sticky brownie that might have fallen onto the tray. But then I contemplated again. Had that even been there before I sat down? I realized that there were some tree branches above the table where I was sitting. I thought... could it be... BIRD POOP?
Panicked thoughts then rushed through my mind. First, I looked at the rest of the tray to see if any of it had landed on my cup (this one had a lid, fortunately) or the “Sausage Pie” without me noticing. Nothing had landed on the cup or the food, thankfully. My clothes were clean, too.
Then I contemplated, how could it be bird poop, though? There was no sign of splatter around, as you would expect from some gooey thing that falls onto a plastic tray. And it was such a large glob of hefty-looking goo that I think I would have noticed it when it landed on my tray. And most of the bird poop that I have seen in my life has usually been like green or yellow, mucus-looking slimy things. Sometimes with brown parts in them, but not completely brown like this glob was.
It really looked like a piece of brownie with whipped cream or frosting on it. And my appetite had still not been quenched by that mostly whipped cream “Espresso Affogato Frappuccino”. So, since I was already using my straw to scoop up the remaining whipped cream in my drink, why not use my straw to scoop up some of that chocolate and give it a taste?
And then I remembered the photo I had taken earlier. I decided to give it a look because this mysterious glob was in a position on the tray where I was sure that it would have shown up in the photo. But no... it was not in the photo. It had not been hidden under the cup either. In the photo, the cup was in a different place. Which means that the glob was UNDOUBTEDLY BIRD POOP.
Wow. For a moment there, I had seriously considered eating bird poop. What are the odds that the one time I go to Starbucks after YEARS of not going, that a bird poops on my tray? And not just any bird poop. It was the nastiest and biggest bird poop I have possibly ever seen in my life. And what the heck was that white goo on it that I had initially thought was like whipped cream or frosting or something?
This glob of bird poop must have landed some moments after I took the photo. I was so focused on my smartphone while I was eating that I did not notice it land there. And it must have been lighter than it appeared. Because, despite it being so big, it did not shake the tray or make a sound upon landing.
I wondered if perhaps the universe was upset with me and had decided to have a bird poop on me to let me know about it. But as I already mentioned, thankfully, it had not landed on my food, drink or clothes. Which indicated to me that the universe had not targeted me, specifically. The odds of bird poop bombardment, in general, must be very high at that particular Starbucks location.
I looked up at the tree branches again. It didn’t seem like there were any birds moving around up there or making noise. But something had to have been up there, considering that bird poop had indeed landed on my tray. The tree branches were just above the heated parasol, so I assumed that birds must be attracted to the warmth and liked to gather up there in the branches.
At this particular Starbucks, there was an overhang above the eating area. But the heated parasols were not under the overhang, and neither was this table that was situated next to it. I wondered why the staff would not position this table under the overhang, considering the bird poop danger. And then I remembered that I had noticed the staff moving some other tables underneath the overhang earlier in the day. THIS MUST HAVE BEEN WHY.
Now it all made sense. The staff had only moved the tables that they were aware had a bird poop risk. And now maybe you can understand why I wonder why the demographic of young, apparently single, women have an affinity for a Starbucks location where they or their food are likely to be bombarded by bird poop.
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What kind of bird poops large globs of chocolate-looking poop with white goo on it? The color makes it worse because the staple food products at Starbucks are mostly BROWN with some WHITE on them. Could it be that these particular birds scavenge so much Starbucks garbage that their poop also started to resemble Starbucks products? Somebody call Mufasa because we’ve got the circle of life going on here.
As I stood up to leave, I got a good look at the top of the heated parasol. IT WAS COVERED IN THAT BROWN BIRD POOP. It may even be that it wasn’t fresh bird poop that had landed onto my tray that time. There was so much bird poop on top of that heated parasol, that it may have been that some of it had just happened to slide off and land onto my tray.
As I walked with my tray, I wondered what the interaction would be like if one of the staff approached me and offered to take my tray, like they sometimes do. I wondered what they would think the moment they noticed that large glob of bird poop that was plopped right on it.
But I didn’t encounter any staff, so I was just walking with a tray that had bird poop on it, thinking about what a “memorable” experience this trip to Starbucks had turned out to be. My first time visiting in years and I get to carry some huge glob of bird poop on my tray.
I returned the tray, but I didn’t clear the bird poop off. Now that I knew what it was, I didn’t want to touch it. So the next person to leave would likely end up returning their tray on top of the one I used and presumably smash up that bird poop and make a mess out of both trays. Oh well.
Needless to say, I’m unlikely to go to Starbucks again anytime soon after what happened this time and because I never liked it much to begin with. I say “unlikely” and not “never” because they are like the coffee version of McDonald’s, sometimes you just can’t avoid going to one.
I will refrain from revealing the location of this particular Starbucks. For the sake of THE BIRDS and THE ANCIENTS. I believe that, on behalf of the entire animal kingdom and THE ANCIENTS, the birds have a right to poop on all the humans who have needlessly destroyed their natural habitat.
The white part was bird pee, apparently. NOW YOU KNOW.
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