Harsh My Mellow

By Smiley Face Now

If you have to begin a story with, “no really, this happened to me,’ then you know it will be a good one.  But, no really, this happened to me.  Actually it happened to me and my older daughter.  I love that fact that she is of an age where we can have shared experiences and laugh about things that happened to “us.”  So here you go: my daughter plays field hockey.  Not my thing, but so what, I support it.  Support comes in the form of paying lots of money and taking her to practice on Sunday morning at 0700 (that’s 7 AM).  Now the early start would not be too much of a problem, except that the facility where they practice is about 40 minutes away and unlike me, a tweenage girl cannot just get up and go.

So as you might imagine, we get up early while sleeping in as late as we can to arrive just at 0700.  We had it down to a science, I get up and hit the coffee, get her up, mill around while “we” get ready, and then out the door, me with coffee in hand.  We decided early on to skip breakfast and just grab something after practice.  Well we stop at the local Starbucks on our way home, get some food and I usually get another coffee and my daughter a juice of some kind.

On this particular morning, I was teasing my daughter about the cost of these breakfast stops and the fact that this time she wanted a mocha frappachino whatever instead of juice.  As we were waiting for our order and continuing our cheerful banter, I said something about her not drinking expensive coffee drinks, but I am glad these frozen drinks don’t have caffeine in them.  Well the counter person, who looks twelve and should be delivering my paper, leans across the counter and says, and I quote, “dude, hate to harsh your mellow, but these drinks have a little caffeine in them.”  My daughter and I were thunderstruck - and not about the caffeine.  The dude was pronounced Duooode and really, Harsh your mellow?  Where the heck are we, Laguna Beach?  I must say I appreciate the kids concern, he was just ensuring I was an informed consumer in that uniquely Starbuck’s way, but seriously.  Anyway we had a laugh about that all the way home.  And now, any time I correct my daughter, like, “hey don’t leave your plate on the counter,” she says I am harshing her mellow.