That Sacred Spice
Guess what, couch potatoes and Zoom nose-pickers? It’s still technically Fall! Winter is only two days away and arrives on a Monday this year (so 2020). Last chance for an Official Fall PSL™. And that means being hesitant about going to Starbucks because every invincible college student is there practicing the two-foot rule they made up with their loose-mask-wearing friends. You go anyway.
While inside, you back away attempting to social distance but then in walks five other inept twenty-something coffee brewers. Really, the exposure is worth it as the siren’s call of pumpkin spice is a thing inescapable and bizzarely fulfilling, especially since you haven’t been out of the house since St. Patrick’s Day.
Working remotely had its perks for the first few days and now you wish you lived in a commercial coffee chain. By the time you reach the car, your seven dollar 12oz cup that looks like an overgrown toddler’s mug thanks to straw bans is empty, the addictiveness of sugar, spice, and caffeine forcing you to guzzle as you wind through the crowds of the coffee shop line and navigate a parking lot that seems more filled than pre-quarantine.
You decide to go to the local market and pick up a pumpkin spice creamer, so you can have that sacred flavor in your own stock. The next morning as you meander downstairs half-a-zombie to make your own coffee, you reach in the fridge for your beloved ambrosia, only to realize the Autumn Gods have forsaken thee. You look at the creamer’s label. Hazelnut.
