A Rant -- by J.O.B.

Gay as it may seem to some, I'm a semi-regular Starbucks consumer. Some of my business meetings take place there and I try and patronize the place a little because a paying customer could be using the space I'm taking up. I could really care less about the Socialist 'Mo's that have issues with a big-dog franchise like Starbucks - "it's ruining all the little mom and pop coffee shops." Mom and pop should have thought of franchising and calling their smallest drink a "tall." Then maybe they'd have more staying power. This is still America.

But that's not what I'm ranting about. In fact, my actual rant is two-pronged (just the way AngryWhiteMan likes it!) I'm usually a "coffee milkshake" buyer (I refuse to try and spell frapa-effyourself,) but Starbucks recently came out with this cinnamon dolce concoction that has actually enticed me to drink a warm beverage at their establishment. The reason is that I'm trying to diet and they've got a sugar-free version that still tastes good. That plus the low-fat milk and I'm good to go. Problem one is that the last 6 Starbucks I've been to in the last two and-a-half weeks don't have the sugar-free cinnamon syrup.

If you've been in a Starbucks lately, they advertise the sugar-free option like God just opened up a backdoor into heaven. It's everywhere in the stores. How does no one in the metro area have sugar-free syrup? This is the biggest coffee franchise in the world and you don't have your most currently advertised product anywhere? That's rant one.

Rant two centers around what happens after I'm informed of the sugar-free deficiency. The "barista" a.k.a. chick or 'mo (do straight guys work at any Starbucks?) that takes my order then asks me if I just want the regular syrup. Now I know, they're just order takers that aren't good enough to handle something as harrowing as a full fast-food menu yet, but you'd think they'd be smart enough to assume there's a reason I'm asking for SUGAR-FREE syrup. Is there nothing in the barista training that covers serving diabetics? Has any barista figured out that if 3/4 of the sugar adding options are fakes, that effing it all up with a sugary syrup is retarded as being a 27 year-old barista? I know most baristas look like they have to survive on the food in the Starbucks (I've seen maybe four obese people working at Starbucks ever,) but you'd think one of them would have a clue about the potential of sugar making you fat.

So what are my options? Well, I can go to sugar-free hazelnut. Eff that - women and 'mos drink hazelnut. If you're a dude and you like hazelnut coffee, you should save us time and just come out of the closet now. Seriously, try saying "hazelnut" while looking at a picture of ... I don't know ... Jake Gyllenhaal. I bet you get wood. My other option is vanilla. Are you serious? Vanilla isn't even a flavor. It's the absence of flavor. Like darkness is the absence of light. Vanilla is the darkness of flavor. Vanilla is a flavor like shoe is a color. The very word as an adjective means plain or non-descript.

Look Starbucks, get it together. Train your dang counter-puppets and get some frickin' sugar-free cinnamon syrup. Either that or bring back Chantico so I've got a real reason to cheat on my diet.