The Venti Incident

A lot of excitement at Starbucks yesterday morning…

There was a long line-up with people ordering very complicated beverages. Something like the order below found on the Quora page:

Quad venti half caf breve no foam with whip two splenda stirred skinny three pump peppermint mocha

I don’t mind waiting when I get to hear orders like this… it’s like coffee poetry.

Traffic was light today so I was able to grab my “Grande Americano with Room”, find a comfortable seat and read the news. As it turns out, I had a front row seat to the incident.

An older gentlemen came in, older than me at least and a surely a gentleman by the way he dressed; fancy suit, shirt, tie and shoes. He went to the counter to order his Venti something-or-other.

He took the table next to mine, hence my front row seat. A couple glances at his watch and the door told me he was waiting for someone. That person showed up a few minutes later and grabbed something in a Tall size.

Tall approached Venti, smiling. Old friends I think…

For some reason, Venti greeted Tall with that large cup in hand. A handshake with the right, a tight squeeze with the left had that Venti exploding in several directions at once… I even jumped a bit. I immediately thought back to the recent incident in Ottawa, but only briefly. A story was brewing here.

Venti’s shirt, tie, pants and shoes took the brunt of the spill. The jacket, draped across the back of the chair escaped without a drop. The pair of phones on the table weren’t able to move fast enough. In fact, they didn’t move at all. Neither did the notebook.

Patrons came running with the extra napkins everyone stuffs in their pockets from these types of places and made short work of the spill on the table. Staff came out with mops and more napkins, cleaned up the mess, supplied a new drink, free of course. Everything got back to normal other than our heart rates.

The only casualties being the shirt, pants, tie, two phones and a notebook.

So this is my question…

Knowing this could happen and often does, why not keep those phones in your pocket until you are absolutely sure you have your drink under control? I don’t think this would happen to me… I’m too careful with my phone.

At least I am after having my own incident…

I was taking a short trip across the lake on a jet ski to pickup something from friends on the other side. I was riding shot gun when the driver thought he’d have a bit of fun. To make a long story short, the jet ski sank, I had to swim back to shore, my phone in my pocket.

But that’s different, I was doing something stupid.