Kids have a latte nerve
mocking her choice of coffee

Robyn's Hood
By Robyn McCloskey

While vacationing last week with family and friends on the beautiful island of St. Thomas (I know, I know, life is rough), and on a mission to keep all 13 of our bellies full, we managed to seek out many an interesting eating establishment.
Some good, some not so good, some offering a smile with service, others not even as much as a hello. But we persevered and discovered some great local fare — and just enough American chain restaurants — to satiate us during those times when we weren’t feeling quite adventuresome enough to order lunch from the side of a truck.
There was a Wendy’s and a McDonald’s, which put a smile on the face of our 8-year-old, and a Pizza Hut that put a smile on the face of us adults — it proved to be the most moderately priced place where we could get our fill.
But to the chagrin of the teenagers and some twentysomethings among us who can’t imagine life before Starbucks, there wasn’t a decent coffee place to be found. And much to my chagrin, not a Dunkin’ Donuts on the whole island.
As someone who’s been around long enough to remember life before a Starbucks on every street corner, I tend to turn my coffee cravings toward the older of the two establishments. Starbucks overwhelms me. So much so that every time I enter one, I half expect a guy from border patrol to ask for my passport since it is clearly evident by the look of total confusion on my face that the language being spoken on both sides of the counter is completely foreign to me.
I don’t know the difference between an espresso and a latte, a Frappuccino from a mochaccino. I don’t understand why the descriptive terms "small, medium and large" are seemingly banished from the vernacular.
This is why I remain faithful to the coffee and doughnuts of my youth. Yes, Dunkin’ Donuts has expanded and done its best to keep up with the trendy and ever-growing coffee specialties of today’s caffeine-buzzed society. Yes, they have incorporated some Starbucks-speak onto their menu, but it doesn’t mean I have to order it, or even learn it for that matter.
I find it reassuring that I can place an order and know what the heck I’m talking about. And getting. My kids make fun of me not only for my choice of coffee establishments but also for my choice of doughnut, since I tend to order the original Dunkin’ Donut, the one that started it all, the plain round doughnut with a hole. It may not be an adventurous choice, it may even lack a hint of icing to jazz it up a little, but you can’t beat the little nub that makes it so much easier to dunk the doughnut in your coffee.
My kids like to insist that no one eats the plain round Dunkin’ Donut but me. They are sadly mistaken, because as I like to point out to them, if I were the only one eating the plain round Dunkin’ Donut, they wouldn’t keep making them.
And one more thing. If it weren’t for the popularity of the original coffee and doughnut that Dunkin’ Donuts has been serving since shortly after the invention of the wheel, there might not be a Starbucks today.
So there!
Even though I claim to not be addicted to my summertime treat of iced coffee, I must confess that my inability to find one while on vacation just made me crave it more, not to mention that the kids among us who were used to their daily Starbucks fix were going through some serious withdrawal symptoms.
But there we were, all 13 of us lazily strolling through one of the many St. Thomas shopping meccas, when someone spotted it, or perhaps they just smelled it. But either way, we, like Columbus and the very island we were on, joyously discovered it.
The Bad Ass Coffee Company!
Right before our delirious eyes was the lesser-known coffee company that got its start in Hawaii, yet another island of paradise. In the midst of the gazillion jewelry stores and designer clothing stores and endless rum shops, there it stood.
And like a dying, dehydrated man scurrying toward an oasis in the desert, we stumbled in and placed our orders, some of us speaking Starbucks and some of us speaking Dunkin’ Donuts, joyous that The Bad Ass Coffee Company was fluent in both languages.
Now if only they had a plain doughnut with that little nub. ••
Robyn McCloskey’s column appears each week in the Northeast Times. She can be reached at crmccloskey@verizon.net