Coffee shop loser

Let me paint the scene for you.\nIt's 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. I just got off work and met my roommate, Oscar, to go to Starbucks so he could caffeinate himself to work on a paper.\nIt had been a long day and I was in no mood for caffeine but I'm always up for a little Starbucks.\nYou see, I'm what some might call a "caffeine lightweight." That means no caffeine in any form (coke, coffee, whatever) after 5 p.m. or I'll spend the rest of the night tossing, turning and cursing the chemical coursing through my body.\nMore often than not, on the nights when I cheat a little I have to get up early the next morning to do something super important. Then, I usually lay in bed telling myself, "OK, if you fall asleep now you'll get six hours of sleep ... OK, if you fall asleep now you'll get five hours of sleep."\nThis process usually ends with me planning a nap for the next day because by this point it's hopeless.\nAnyway, going to Starbucks at 10:30 p.m., I knew I clearly couldn't drink anything with caffeine if I didn't want to spend the rest of the night lying in bed talking to myself.\nScanning the menu, I looked for something that would do. Then I spotted it.\nA grande strawberries and cream-blended drink.\nNow, in case you're not familiar with the hierarchy of cool Starbucks drinks, ordering this is about the same as going to an authentic pub in Germany and ordering a Keystone Light. It's wimpy, it's lame and it pretty much defeats the purpose of buying a drink there at all.\nAlso, not helping my case was the presentation. Just like any of the other cold drinks at Starbucks it comes in a see-through cup. Unlike the other drinks, though, it is a lovely shade of (what else?) pink.\nNow I'm not making any comment on guys and the color pink, Lord knows I have my share of pink shirts. The problem was just that it's a little embarrassing walking into a coffee shop late at night and ordering this drink when all the hard-core, "who needs sleep, I have coffee" kids are in there studying.\nCompounding the problem was the cute girl that just walked in and was standing in line behind me.\nI walked up to the counter and leaned in a bit closer than I normally would have felt comfortable doing and whispered to the cashier, "Grande strawberries and crème, please."\n"What?" he replied a little louder than necessary.\n"Strawberries and crème please," I whispered again, glancing around to make sure no one heard.\n"STRAWBERRIES AND CRÈME," he belted to the Barista.\nNeedless to say, it wasn't exactly the smooth, undercover transaction I was hoping for.\nNow, I may just be imagining this, but I'm pretty sure that girl in line gave me a funny look and as I lay awake in bed debating with myself whether she did or didn't, I finally realized that I probably should have just drank the damn caffeine.