I’m a Dutch Bros regular who has unwittingly created two Dutch Bros regulars. The math on this hobby is not pretty. I will get motivated a couple of times a year to fire up my own coffeemaker for about one morning at a time. I get up early, track down the stale coffee and try to mentally hype myself up. Then I realize I don’t even want to live a life that is marked with un-boujee coffee and I find myself headed to my beacon, the Dutch Bros on Woodruff.
One cup of coffee out every morning adds up quickly, but with three, I might as well sign over a college fund. Plus, my preferred order is so long that I trail off halfway through out of pure embarrassment, so I actually never know what I’m going to be drinking. But yes, I’m still addicted. My visit to the coffee store in the morning is the most fun I can have in Idaho Falls on a workday.
Not only do I have a ridiculously specific coffee order, both my teenagers do as well.
Are any of our orders the same? No.
Does the barista spend three times the amount of time as a normal order at our car window? Without a doubt.
Could we possibly simplify? Extremely unlikely.
We are what we are.
This daily pilgrimage to the Dutch Bros on Woodruff had become a sacred family ritual. When they added “Shine” as an option to make the iced drinks sparkle in the sun, we became even more obsessed. As it turns out, that feature is liquid cane sugar with edible glitter, so yeah, that can’t be good for us. But we didn’t care. We ordered doubles.
Now I fully recognize this hobby is something I have taken up by choice. But it’s the one bad habit this family full of woman has. We are normal people who are not usually swayed by sparkles and glitter.
For two teenage sisters, there is shockingly little infighting at my house. No one cares about the front seat. (My mom used to assign days of the week to solve this never-ending problem between my siblings). They freely share clothes with no issue. I have never heard any harsh words exchanged over bathroom time, skincare items or anything else sisters tend to disagree about.
But, so help me, if Dutch Bros only gives us only one pink straw, crap is going to hit the fan and it becomes THE. HILL. WE’RE. ALL. GOING. TO. DIE. ON. This singular point of contention threatens to destroy all our familial bonds.
Tears will ensue. Things will be said. The offer to cut it in half will be willingly ignored. The situation, without a doubt, will escalate to me holding the straw out the window and screaming, “I’m dropping it. I’m dropping it. You two are about to have the blood of every sea turtle in existence on your hands. No more straws for any of you.”
And in the moment, no one will care about the sea turtles because if they have to have a blue straw instead of THE PINK one, life has no meaning. In our world, coffee is king and pink straws are the only currency of happiness.
Excuse me for a sec, while I order 2,000 pink straws from Amazon ’cause it’s the only thing that matters in my life right now. And when I use said straws to inhale an extra 1,000 calories of edible glitter, my life will be even better.