Coffee,Lattes,Decafe?? Kaapi kudungapa...

It was stil day zero and my uncle decided that i better not sleep the moment i arrive cos my sleeping schedule is gonna be all screwed up with the jet lag looming large over my shoulders...jet lag is a very irritating thing he maentioned, i laughed to myself...lag ku kay lag aah?? :) bring it on i say... In any case since i would have dozed off if i was just left to laze around in the house, he took me out to check out Best Buy, one of the many thousand chains to sell everything and anything that u mite ever need at the best prices...u see u should have got that from the name Best Buy. So we head to Best Buy, and frankly it wasnt anything special, like any other super market that namma bharath matha mite have, this was just only slightly bigger...we got some items, right now cant even quite remember what those were...anyway we finish with that and knowing very well, i was very much a coffee person like my mom(we easily do like 3-4 cups before noon everyday and the only coffee i had taken over the last 20 or so hours were a Thailand cold coffee which was heavenly btw and black coffee on my last flight to san francisco) my uncle offered to buy me some and hence introduce me to starbucks...

As i walked in, i looked at the sign board with awe...we have cafe coffee days all over the place in chennai and two on every street corner in b'lore (no i am not exaggeratng!! its mad i tel u in b'lore...i do not understand the fetish that our IT capital has with CCD) but this was starbucks...the most common coffee place most romantic movies u watch start with... the same place you expect someone as beautiful as julia roberts to rush in and say "the usual" and leave with the same urgency...So we enter and wait in queue...my first starbucks coffee in the states...for most of you, that might sound normal but for a coffee afficianado this was in fact a big deal...from the back of the queue i take a look around...it was like any other coffee place that i have been to.... we got the counters displaying all the eateries available and in the back all the coffee making...hmmm shall i call it equipment? anyways i sat back and let the smell of hot coffee enthrall my senses. as my turn got closer i managed to get my first look at the girl taking the order and boy was she cute... and i aint saying cute like i call most gals...this girl really was cute, and i wasnt jus talking bout her freckle filled face...well that was cute too but the way she seemed to have a really infectious smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye...yeah i could not see the sparkle until i got close enough to give my order but even at a distance i could sense it... with an utmost ease and grace that could have shamed the most graceful of whatever that can be considered as graceful( i wanna say all those 18th century women but i dont want my extremely limited female fraands...yeah yeah i knoe...ISS ,to take offense...see i told u, we need to be more considerate and polictically aware of what u say around here)

When there was only a single customer between us, i got a better look at her... she was about 5 foot 7, give or take a few inches with this radiant energy about her( no i am not swept away by americas ability to market and sell, well yeah a little but there was somethin about this girl)...hmmm i began to ponder if she did this as full time or it was just her way for paying thru college...u hear about all these students hu put themselves thru college by part timing and one look at her and u knew she was one such student...it was almost like u could sense that behind that million dollar smile and sweet girlish voice, there was a woman who wanted to succeed at all costs even if it meant serving coffee with that fake smile and "oh so sweet"voice for about 10 hours everyday...

As she efficiently finished with the guy in front of us with that smile again (cue coldplay music...god put that smile upon ur face, honey honey...), my 7 yr old cousin, my uncle and I stepped up to place our orders( in baseball terms, the batter has just stepped onto the plate and the pressure mounts)...while my cousin placed her order for hot chocolate with a little peppermint in it, she took up a styrofoam cup, made a note of the order on it and put my little

cousins name on it with a little heart symbol next to it(cue awwwwwwwwwwww sound now), she looked up with her big black eyes and smiled...wow i am not quite sure what beautiful eyes look like, but i was pretty sure that that couldnt be far from this...As i navigated myself back to the real world after being lost for a while there, i found that i was holding up the line and worse i was just staring at her dumstruck as she kept smiling back waiting for my order... i blurted the first thing that came to my mind... "KAAPI" i found myself screaming at her and my cousin was the only who found that funny. I looked around to see the suprise+condescending look on everybody elses face but not her...she still kept smiling like she is used to having 21 yr old grad students from india shouting "kaapi!!" at her...god stop smiling at me with those big dark eyes woman, this is hard as it is..

Excuse me ,she said, ahem-ahem i cleared my throat to indicate that sore throat is the reason why my coffee might be misintepreted as kaapi...yeah right like anyone would fall for that!! anyway with a little more confidence or rather the fear of looking like a complete neanderthal, i forced myself to say co..ffff...yeah thats it i almost got it..eeee...

Sure sir, she said(still smiling though..shebbaaa good safe i self congratulated myself with a mental hi five!!) and did not stop...how do you like it sir? (Ennadhu sir aah...peelings...if i was mel gibson in what women want, this is the point where i lean on the counter and tel her to call me nut and let her know i was nuts about her+ask her for dinner but since i am not) i had to settle on figuring out what she meant...so i quickly looked up at the menu board, aahh much better no smiling face with dark eyes...damn spoke too soon, now i am thinking about it!! concentrate, concentrate...lets try and read the board...enna omgwtf!! latte, decafes,dark...dai dai dai enna idhellaam...the whole board could have been latin or greek for all i cared cos nuthing made sense to me... As the big fat guy with a lotta tattoos told me to hurry on, in a slip of tongue+fall of mind i asked for filter kaapi...as soon as i said it, i realised how i stoopid i sounded...wogaad!! luckily she didnt hear me properly and went excuse me again (thats twice in like 40 seconds...not good!!)...

I put this "deer caught in the light" look on my face and looked at my uncle pleadingly and he understood that i had no idea what to order and said i wil have a triple latte with lactaid milk and half a splendor!! and i thought to myself..ennadhu? i have seen chemical compounds in Govis class which were simpler than what he has just said...She took it down and looked at me and managed a smile and nodded like an idiot to reassure thats what i will be having.. i made a mental note to find out what every part in that order meant...

So we got our coffee+hot chocolate+brownie and got out of there...Not my ideal first starbucks experience but atleast i got a cup of hot coffee at the end of it...damn if i had that before, maybe i would not have faltered before...note to self: always sharpen urself with a cup of kaapi before u enter a starbucks to order one... on our way home i asked my uncle what that order meant...well atleast parts of it... some i had already realised...

i am putting it up for future reference:

single/double/triple- amount of the coffee "digashan" u want added...its not digoshan exactly but something like that... triple seemed ok for me and i like my coffee strong.

latte- normal coffee ie with milk in it. u can also ask for coffee with cream, its the same i think. decafe is coffee without the caffeine!! (wtf?? i know!) and black coffee..well we all know thats just digashan.

lactaid milk is milk without lactose in it, its healthier i hear. u can also get normal milk and skimmed milk as well (parthiban-vadivelu otaga paal caamedy comes into my mind now!!)

and splendour is sucralose, its an artificial sweetner with no calories, once again healthier but u can always get sugar if u want...

natesh

"i am too old for this shit"