I was coming home from the South Coast, some time back, long trip, almost at the limit of my potential to keep on truckin', so I ducked off the ring-road for coffee. Gloria Jean's presented itself so I planted myself there, after ordering a supersizzled serving of Gloria's best. After a minute, I thought I'd save the barista a journey to my table and sidled up to the counter. She had her back to me and was, I discovered soon after, conjuring up my order.
I watched on in horror, gobsmacked, as a regular sized espresso was unceremoniously dumped into a supersized paper cup before it was topped up with boiling water and barely a splash of milk. She turned 'round, saw me standing there, and swallowed hard. I pretended not to have noticed, said thank you and waddled off to my table. I think I might've had a mischievous grin on my face as I sat down and readied myself for this pitiful partial placebo — one that, miraculously, did do the trick despite Gloria's godless grafting. As the slop cooled, I sat there grinning, thinking. If my dosage calculations were correct, this woman had just moved the decimal point one place to the left and then charged me double for it before signing my death warrant, charged and condemned to die in a ditch with a chronic caffeine deficiency.
That alone was enough to keep me grinning like a maniac and bolt-upright in the driver's seat, for the duration of the journey. Since that near fateful evening, I've never once considered chancing my luck at any coffee joint that comes anywhere remotely near the nature of that inglorious Jean's and her disingenuous, dozy den of inequity. I still get mileage, recounting that memorable little misadventure, whenever I find myself twilight zoning out and craving a good, hefty cuppa.
