There are one, maybe two, things I do that I do which drive Alex bananas.
Maybe three.
Four tops.
One of those things is my love for Starbucks. It isn't that he doesn't like Starbucks, he isn't insane, it's that he doesn't like paying $4 for a drink on a regular basis.
He's so uptight sometimes.
I think he doesn't understand that long ago, Starbucks was started to be the neighborhood gathering place. A place where you could feel comfortable and see your friends and pay obsence amounts for coffee and tea.
Who wouldn't want to support and be a part of that?
Unfortunately, we've currently paid $8.3 billion on summer camps and such to keep me sane with my children out of school, and the budget does not want Starbucks to be part of my life. I usually order a venti (that's the BIG one for anyone that doesn't speak Italian or Starbucks as fluently as I do.) This drink costs approximately $4 and thus means I have no business purchasing it on a regular basis.
I'm not sure if you've heard or not, but it's really freakin' hot here in Texas though. It's very unpleasant to be functioning out in the world, what with all the dripping sweat and cranky emotions due to being on the verge of passing out. So, when the temperature is hiking up to the triple digits, there are fewer beverages more satisfying than a Starbucks Peach Green Tea Lemonade.
(FYI, not just anyone can go asking for the peach part of this drink I've found, but here in Austin we have peach bits floating in our green tea and it's delicious. Try to supress your jealousy.)
So, last Friday, I dropped Aiden at art camp, I stared at Cole and Stella and decided to go to the park to perspire. I immediately started thinking about swinging by the Bucks and conspiring about where I could located a guilt-free $4.
Then, I started thinking about how I shouldn't be spending money on tea.
Then I said, I screw it. I need and deserve a giant over-priced tea.
I turned in to my Starbucks drive-thru as I set out for the park.
Immediately after I placed my order, I heard a loud gun-shot.
Gun shot people.
I immediately knew that Alex had spotted me in the Starbucks drive-thru and had fired upon me. Surely he had snapped. He was having visions of budget discussions and calculating the cost of two to three $4 drinks a week, 52 weeks a year, multiplied by a lifetime of till death do us part.
Due to the regular gun fire in their lives, Stella and Cole didn't even blink.
(Mom, fear not, they have never been around gunfire....that I know of.)
I quickly did a look around and didn't see Alex, but I did notice the orange tire indicator on my dash.
Oh......apparently the sound of your tire exploding is a lot like the sound of your husband shooting at you because he can't stand the fact that you love delicious, cancer preventing - I hear, $4 tea.
I immediately pulled out of the drive through line and in to a parking spot. I got out of the car and saw this.
 |
This isn't how it usually looks, right? |
Despite my fear about having to confess another trip to Starbucks, I immediately called Alex to come rescue me. Let's be honest, my father taught me how to change a tire when I was 16, but I don't remember anything about how to do it on a 1991 Honda Preluede, no way I was trying on my Sienna.
Isn't this why I got married and put up with someone being annoyed at my Starbucks obsession?
I also immediately walked over to the drive-thru window to get my iced green tea. Clearly I was going to be stuck for a while, no way was I giving up my drink.
Alex arrived and got right to work on the tire.
 |
Love. |
Good thing Cole was there to help.
While waiting for the work to be done, I did what any good woman would do and found a nice cozy spot in which to sit in the grass and wait for the manual labor to be finished.
A nice cozy spot...where all the fire ants in the world live.
I immediately screamed and stuck my hands up and around areas where you shouldn't put your hands in public. I jumped in the open-doored minivan and took off my ant-filled shorts to try to get them off of me.
Just so you know, fire ants are really mean and extremely persistent. They stuck and crawled all around in my business. Biting all manner of my business and attaching themselves to my clothes. Who would have thought that creatures that are allowed to live at Starbucks are so mad?
Also? Fire ants freakin' hurt.
I will never again tell one of my children to buck up when bitten by a fire ant. I will drop anything and everything to get them to Benedryll and bowls of their favorite ice cream and/or Starbucks beverage.
As I was killing ants and cursing my pain and my inability to EVER wear pretty underwear when I am half dressed in a Starbucks parking lot, I suddenly realized that all of this was set up to happen to save my life. I had been chosen to live, surely for something profoundly great.
If I weren't addicted to Starbucks' overpriced teas, comfortable neglecting my husband's budgetary requests, and living somewhere that feels like we spend all day walking around in a hot attic, I wouldn't have pulled over on the way to the park to be sitting in a drive-thru when my tire blew.
Instead I would have been driving 70 mph on a four lane highway and then I would have crashed and surely died.
I'm just grateful that we've all learned a lesson around here.
Pay a lot for your tea and your life will be spared, but not without pain...since God has allowed those evil fire ants to live.
Oh, and always wear pretty underwear. You never know when you'll be in your panties in a parking lot.