the things we do for love

I got back to L.A. this morning, just ten minutes late for my 10:50 a.m. class. My friend, Monelle, from school and I made the trek back at 4:15 a.m.! (she was dropped off at my house this morning). She hadn't really slept the night before, so she totally conked out during highway 152 and parts of I-5, while I was very awake at the wheel after my B-K coffee. You can get three different levels of coffee at Burger King apparently - decaf, regular, and "turbo." I'm not sure if this variety exists at every Burger King, or only those along I-5, but I thought it was pretty funny. Anyways, I realized later in class that I totally could have made it to class on time, if not early, had it not been for the unfortunate turn of events that occurred in Buttonwillow just two hours prior...

After breakfast at Burger King at 7:00 a.m., and my BK coffee, I told Monelle that I was still determined to make it to the one Starbucks that I knew of along the way to L.A. -- the Starbucks in Buttonwillow. I have a particular reliance on the Buttonwillow Starbucks. Every time I've made the drive either to or from L.A., I've stopped in Buttonwillow to fuel up - my car and myself. And yes, I know this is the way addicts talk. ;-)

Anyway, by the time we reached Buttonwillow, at about 8:15 a.m. (about 100 miles north of U.C.L.A.), we were making perfect time. I ordered my grande soy latte, and Monelle got a tall chai tea. We even did the drive-through window. And back on the road we went. A few miles later south on I-5, Monelle took a sip of her chai tea, and in a groggy state, exclaimed that it tasted like coffee. She handed it to me, and I tried it. Sure enough, it was just black coffee. She asked, "should we go back?" And I said, "hmmm, have we gone too far already south?" We continued to deliberate.

A moment passed, and I took a sip of my latte. To my horror, there was NO espresso. It was just a hot cup of soy milk. We started to laugh. In all seriousness, I stated, "We're turning around." The next exit didn't appear for several miles (since this was I-5 after all). We finally turned around, and Monelle got the receipt ready so we could explain why we were returning twenty-five minutes later to reclaim our proper drinks. The whole way back to Buttonwillow, we laughed at how ridiculous we were for actually making a twenty-five minute detour BACK to Buttonwillow just to get the right order at Starbucks. "For the principle," we decided.

When we finally got to Buttonwillow again (after making an initial turn at the exit before), we placed our drinks down emphatically on the counter. Tired and kinda delirious I just blurted out "My latte has no coffee in it and her chai tea isn't a chai!" Monelle then added, "we really need to get back to L.A. and we really wanted our drinks and we really needed the caffeine..."

Anyway, they thought we were kinda weird, but gave us the right drinks.

And back on I-5 we went. And back to L.A. I am. The end!

P.S. Sorry if this didn't sound like a funny story...it might be one of those "you just had to be there" kind of moments.