Poll, Knitting News, and My Starbux Adventure

Poll:

I assume that most people who read this blog are knitters, but I think I have a fair amount of non-knitting readers too. Today, I have a question for the non-knitters. Do my knitting-related posts cause your eyes to glaze over and your jaw to reflexively slack open? Hell, my knitting posts probably bore the knitters.

I want to see what draws the non-knitters to my bloggiepoo. Do you skim over the kntting stuff to the non-knitting stuff? What's your favorite non-knitting related recurring topic? OR is there something I haven't talked about that maybe I should? Are you a fan of the Aldi Files? Ryanisms? I'm just curious. What brings you back to Behold My Brilliance? Or did you land here by accident when you did a search for Yakov Smirnoff?

So chime in! Knitters, you can chime in too.
Like I could stop you.


Knitting news:

Knock a WIP off my list. Before you go thinkin I finished something - The Cascade Fixation Tank now resides in the Frog Pond. I have replaced it with the Moebius Capelet (minus the Squiggle), which is almost done. I'm beginning to see that Instant Gratification is a big thing for me. I also began and completed two of Poops' coffee cozies last week, which were well-received by the coffee drinkers in my life.


Tangent that leads to a funny story:

I will now admit publicly for the first time that I am absolutely petrified of ordering coffee in a coffee shop. Petrified. Terrified.

Coffeeshops scare the crap out of me. I'm so out of my element, I'm completely intimidated. I've never drank a cup of coffee in my life. Really, never. It's not even so much that I don't like the taste (how would I know?), I just try to stay away from as many potential addictions as possible. And my mom is as big a coffee addict as you'll ever find.

Since she knew I was going to be passing a Starbux on my way to pick Mom up, she asked me to bring her some coffee. If the fact that there's one on every streetcorner didn't already render it a safe bet that you'll pass one anytime you get into a car, I'd swear Starbux luvahs must have some sort of internal Starbux-seeking GPS system. I ignored my sweaty palms and the sound of my own heart pounding in terror, and I asked her what she wanted.

A Large Cup of House Blend.

Simple enough, no? I repeated it back to her no fewer than four times. I just wanted to make sure I got it right. Don't coffee people get really pissy when their coffee is wrong?

It seemed, to a coffee-ordering rookie, fairly straightforward. No triple double shot espresso moco-caramel latte, no foam, no half caf/half decaf, twist o' lemon, nothing fancy at all. I was confident that I could handle it.

Now, if only I could get through the door.

Would they shine a light in my face and make me show a Coffeedrinkers Membership Card (and if so, how quickly could I whip up a fake one)? Would they ask me for a password? Should I avoid eye contact?

Would alarms go off? INTRUDER! INTRUDER!

Can coffee-people spot non-coffee people? I'm sure I must exude coffee ignorance. I imagined that walking into a Starbux as a non-coffee person would be like Captain Kirk and Crew landing on a strange new planet. Should I immediately raise my arms over my head and assure them that I come in peace?

I walked in the door, and let me just say that if there had been a jukebox in the room, it would have gone rrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I totally sensed that I was interrupting a secret club meeting where this small faction of Starbux devotees was plotting its next move toward Total Global Domination.

Yes, yes, we'll bulldoze the elementary school and the fire station and the homeless shelter and build a giant solid gold 24-hr Java Temple there! Brilliant! Yes, otherwise people would have to drive two-tenths of a mile to the next Starbux. Oh, the horror!
(sniff sniff) What the...? Who let the tea-drinking INFIDEL in here!! ABORT!! ABORT!!

I took a deep breath and cautiously tiptoed toward the counter, so as not to trip the High-Tech Mission Impossible Infra-Red Laser Beam Security System that, although invisible to the naked eye, was fully operational. I'm totally sure of it.

Problem #1. I'm reading the menu. There is no LARGE. There's Tall, Grande, and Venti or something like that. Huh??? Tall is the smallest? Grande is Medium? What the hell does Venti mean? Why do they gotta jack with me? Seriously. How hard is SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE? How f*ckin pretentious. Whatever. I'm just gonna ask for the biggest and see what happens.

So I get up to the counter, feeling pretty good about my Plan B, and supercute blonde curly-haired hippie surfer pooka-shell necklace wearing coffee order-taker dude Josh says, "Yes ma'am, what can I get for you?"

Hey! I understood that! They speak English here!!! Wait a minute, what's my line? A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stickah buttah? No, that's not it...

"A Large House Blend." Yes! I did it!!

And then, Problem #2.

"I'm sorry, we don't have the House Blend today."

Oh SHIT. I didn't have a backup alternative.

Total panic. I felt the room spinning. I stood there with my mouth open long enough for Josh to realize I needed rescuing.

"We have the Verona today, is that all right?"

I must have nodded, but I seriously don't remember. It was like I was standing in the middle of an Impressionist painting where everything around me was all swirly and out-of-focus and blurry and I just wanted to get the hell out of there before I fainted from the pressure.

And then Problem #3, the question I didn't anticipate.

"Room for cream?"

I'd never heard that combination of words before. I asked him to repeat them so as to slyly buy myself time to process the question.

Room for cream? What is that about? Are you basically asking me if I want you to give me less coffee than I just paid you for? Do you want my permission to short-change me? No way, mister supercute blonde curly-haired hippie surfer pooka-shell necklace wearing coffee order-taker dude. I'm onto you.

"Um, no, thanks."

He handed me my full-to-the-top Venti Verona (NOT the Large House Blend I was supposed to get) and I left, pondering how I was going to break it to Mom that I, through no fault of my own, was unable to get what she'd asked me to get. Keep in mind, I'm dealing with a woman who hasn't had her caffeine yet. If I give her The Wrong Coffee, she may just throw the Scalding Hot Sacrilege at my head.

I reverently presented my mother with the fruit of my labor, the hard-earned cup of Starbux coffee, as though I were presenting Salome with the head of John the Baptist. I am compelled to confess to her, however, that it is NOT the coffee she sent me for. It's the head of some other saint. It's the best I could do.

"They didn't have the House Blend, so I got something that starts with V." I instinctively took a step backward, toward the door.

"Verona? Oh, okay, that's good. That's fine."

Thank GOD. Relief. Victory. Sigh.

"Oh, and didja leave room for cream?"