"Tai Chi Latte"

To my fellow appreciators of all things coffee, I thought you might appreciate this. But in my own defense, in one way or another for the past six weeks I have been on medication that makes me silly.

Wanting something hot to drink this chilly January afternoon, I surrendered to the allure of Starbucks. I honestly believe my car has a homing device that causes it to automatically steer in that direction.

I really didn't want what I ordered. I MEANT something else. Like most women, I am given to saying one thing and meaning another. But that's another story over another cup of coffee on another day.

Pulling up to the drive thru box I was greeted by Miss Congeniality 2009. By the way...you DO know there is a tiny camera mounted in the drive thru box and Miss Congeniality can actually SEE you rolling your eyes at her syrupy sweetness on a special screen hanging just above her cash register, right? It's true!

Anyway....I confidently ordered a Tai Chi Latte'. Tall.

I heard my ten-year-old groan from the back seat.

I turned and asked "WHAT is it NOW?"

He responded, "It is NOT a TAI CHI Latte. It's a Chai Tea Latte."

(For those who are unawares, I offer this simple definition of Tai Chi: it is a form of martial arts)

It was over for me at that point.

The giddiness of laughter hit my elbows and rendered my arms useless before it tumbled out of my mouth. I promise you I was so paralyzed with humor at my own stupidity that all I could do as I sat there blocking traffic in the drive thru lane was laugh like a hyena.

I finally regained enough composure to make it the rest of the way around the building to pick up my beverage. I can only imagine what the Starbucks baristas were thinking as they watched me laughing hysterically for at least three minutes from behind the dark sliding glass of the drive thru window. I am sure they thought I was drunk.

Miss Congeniality opened her hallowed portal and popped her head out just like a prairie dog rising from his earthly den to take inventory of the plains. She was everything Miss Congeniality should be: a blonde, blue-eyed, bubbly, petite little thing with perfectly straight, blindingly white teeth...kinda like Chiclets gum spaced with precision in her mouth by a wizard of dental masonry. She had the audacity to ask me how I was doing.

I burst out laughing again.

Tai Chi Latte.

Who knows but that subconsciously I just wanted a real "kick-butt" drink! HA!