Coffeemaker with Cup, Samovar with Cup      -      Kontuly Béla , 1935.

Hungarian ,  1904-1983

My parents live in a small town that used to be too small for a Starbucks. Their town is now literally a One Starbucks Town. (Ask me about how they had to custom-build a 7-11, something I have never seen before, and the excitement of the villagers on opening day.) This One Starbucks is on the other side of town, which wouldn’t be much of an issue since see above in re: small town, except they’re about 20 minutes outside of the town itself. 

So anyway all of this means she asked her son, who doesn’t drink coffee but does live within a mile of more than a dozen Starbuckses, to get her a souvenir “red cup” that they give away every year on a special day if you order a special drink. My office frequently gives out Starbucks giftcards as perks for various things, so I said sure, and this morning I jaunted down the block at 6am to get my mother a red cup. When I got in line the lady in front of me in line turned around and said, “Are you here for the holiday cup too?”

Turns out the lady in front of her, and the guy in front of her, were also there to get cups, specifically for their mothers, like me. 

Wow, I thought, this must be a big deal. I’ll get one for Dad too, I thought, like a fool who doesn’t know how Starbucks works.  

So I asked the barista what I needed to do in order to get a fun red cup if I didn’t like coffee and she said “Well, you could get a peppermint cocoa!” so I said “two of those, please” and she rang me up and gave me an empty plastic cup, which was slightly confusing. 

It turns out that a) they don’t give you the drink in the fancy cup itself and b) they only give you one per person and c) neither I nor my mother, who also doesn’t go to Bux often because of the one-Bux nature of their town, knew that this was a plastic cup and not like a nice ceramic cup or something. I just assumed the price of a nice cup was built into the price of the drink and didn’t notice what I was paying because I was paying in Giftcard, and Mum assumed because she’d seen on the news that it was a Big Fuckin’ Deal that they were nice ceramic cups. She was as perplexed as I was when I sent her the triumphant photo of the cup I had procured for her. Also I now have like a gallon of hot cocoa, which is okay because I do like their cocoa and will drink it cold as a treat later. 

Ace here for winter with red coffee cups!

This is probably my fav photo from Confuzzled, it radiates such chaotic energy!