Hot Chocolate

I am seven years old. It is a Sunday morning and I am riding in my dad’s red truck— Big Red, I call it. The interior smells like gasoline and the seats are worn grey fabric. I like riding in the truck because it is the only time I ever get to sit in the front seat. My da doesn’t say much, and I don’t either. I do not want to interrupt the comfortable silence with mindless chatter. I know even at seven that my dad does not talk much, and that is okay.

We arrive at our destination— The Sunrise Café on Main Street in downtown Meridian, Idaho. The inside smells like breakfast food and other customers run circles around us. We are shown to our table.

Dad and I have been getting breakfast together for as long as I can remember. It is the only time I get with just him, because my mom usually stays home. I always get the same thing.

“I want the pancake platter, please,” I say as confidently as I can to the waitress, “and a hot chocolate with whipped cream.”

“How would you like your eggs?” She asks. I look at Dad. As much as I would like to keep up my façade of being a grown up, I am unable to answer the question. I don’t know how I like my eggs cooked, because I am a child with no concept of cooking. I eat what is put in front of me.

“She wants them over-medium,” he responds, handing our menus back to the waitress.

I do not eat much of my food. I never do. I pick at the eggs and eat about half of the pancakes, which are fluffy and light and the size of my face. I do, however, drink all of my hot chocolate and eat the whipped cream with my spoon. The hot chocolate is always my favorite part of breakfast. It is smooth and warm, and makes me feel full even if I hardly touch the rest of my food. Dad notices that my plate is still half full, but does not say anything. He steals a bite of my pancakes, pays, and we ride home in Big Red, silent again, and I watch the world pass by outside.

Black Tea

I am eleven. It’s the middle of summer and everything is dry and too warm. It’s not good weather for hot tea, but my nana is from Britain so we drink it anyway. I am sitting at the large wood dining room table in our house, with Nana on one side of me and my mom on the other. Three generations of women, all drinking hot black tea with varying levels of cream and sugar.

“Shannon, you always put the cream and sugar in before the hot water when you drink tea,” Nana tells me, as she prepares my cup.

“Why?” I ask, because I always need a reason before I listen to instructions.

“It’s the way we make tea in England,” She responds.

To me, England is a mystical land full of tea and rainclouds and cottages and red telephone booths. I have only seen pictures and heard stories. As Nana has gotten older, all she wants to talk about is England, even though it seems to me that America is her home. She moved here when she was twenty, and lives with us now that she is eighty and widowed.

As my mom and her mom talk about things I do not understand or care about, I run my hands over the teacup I received at Christmas. It is fine white china with red English roses on it, and a saucer to match. I take a sip of my tea. It is very weak, because I am too impatient to let it steep for more than thirty seconds. The cream and sugar I add has made it barely a shade darker than my pale European skin. I fidget in my chair.

No one is paying attention to me because I have nothing important to add to the conversation. One of Nana’s favorite phrases is children should be seen and not heard. My mother is not so fond of this phrase, especially in reference to me. I dip my spoon into my tea, and watch as the cool, milky liquid drips off my spoon and into my cup. I finish my beverage and slip away from the table, onto better things.

Caramel Frappuccino

I am thirteen and I think I am much more of an adult than I actually am. My parents take me to Starbucks with them for probably the thousandth time in my life. They let me order a Caramel Frappuccino. It is a rich, smooth blend of coffee, ice, and caramel flavoring. Whipped cream fills the dome lid on top and is drizzled with caramel. It has probably half a bag of sugar and far more caffeine than my small body needs.

My parents laugh under their breath at the sugary drink I am calling coffee. They both order vanilla lattes with nonfat milk. Real coffee. I roll my eyes at their behavior. Why would I drink bitter, scorching lattes when I can sip something through a straw that tastes exactly like dessert?

Dad signs up for the Starbucks Rewards program. Mom and he drink enough coffee to earn them free drinks every month. Dad always gives the free drinks to me. He wants to allow me to drink my four dollar Frappuccino, but the price for those adds up quickly. Since I’m too young to have a job, I don’t have my own spending money.

“You need to learn how to drink cheaper coffee,” Mom tells me, “You aren’t going to be able to afford these on your own.”

I am sure she is right, but for now, I am enjoying my overpriced drinks. I ride my bike to Starbucks in the summer with my neighborhood friend, and we drink our coffee on the warm grass in the front yard, giggling as the caffeine hits us. We have been friends since I was ten and she was eight. Now, she is eleven and I’m thirteen. I am just months away from high school and she’s about halfway done with middle school. Sometimes, that age difference seems like a huge, unbridgeable gap. In these moments, though, where we find a common interest, the years between us do not seem remotely important. We leave our empty, sticky cups on the grass, and for a while, feel much more grown up than we are.

Chocolate Chip Frappe

I am sixteen years old. I started my job at McDonald’s a week ago and the smell of grease has already permeated my uniform, which consists of a blue and black polo, black cargo pants, and a yellow and red visor. I hate the visor. It makes me sweaty and greasy and my hair gets stuck in the Velcro.

“Would you like any fries with your order today?” I ask the customer in the drive thru.

“Did I say I wanted fries?” The lady snaps back at me. I roll my eyes and try not to sound annoyed.

“Your total will be five dollars and sixty cents at the first window. Thank you.”

My job consists of cooking fries and serving customers. I have a very hard time when I first start out. I mess up orders consistently and do not know how to deal with complaints. Confrontation is hard for me and I cry a lot. It takes me months to become competent, to stop feeling like a failure for not being perfect at a job I had never done. The one good part of being a crew member is my 50% discount, which I can use once a day.

I use my discount to buy Chocolate Chip Frappes, which is a coffee drink blended with chocolate chips. It is topped with whipped cream, caramel and chocolate syrup. A large size, according to the McDonald’s website, has 750 calories. It is sugary enough to hurt my teeth when I drink it. I order them more often than I should. My work pants start getting too tight. As my work competency increases, my self confidence decreases. My coffee habit is finally cheap because of my discount, but the longer I continue drinking almost 1,000-calorie pure liquid sugar, the worse I feel.

Making coffee drinks in a fast food restaurant is a very controlled process. The coffee mix is liquid and pumps into a blender. A very specific amount of chocolate chips is added. The machine adds ice on its own. The only thing the crew member has to do is push the button for size and the button for the type of drink. I like that about my job. Everything is organized and mechanical. There is very little room for human error, which means there is very little room for me to make errors.

I am not supposed to make my own food when I’m off the clock, but sometimes I do anyway. I try to make my coffees as much as possible because I enjoy the process. It hands me back the control I lack working a low-level job with what feels like millions of people higher up than me, a greasy, burger-flipping high school student.

I work at McDonald’s until the August right before I start college. On my last day, I use my discount one more time to buy a Chocolate Chip Frappe. I get a small instead of a large this time.

Caramel Mocha

I am almost twenty years old. I am a month away from my second year of college ending. Mot of the time, the only thing that gets me through the day is the promise of a Caramel Mocha from the Human Bean across the street. I started drinking them at the beginning of my freshman year, and have been hooked ever since. They are the perfect combination of sweet and bitter, and have enough caffeine to keep me awake and productive for several hours longer than I normally am. Without them, I cannot write my papers efficiently because I cannot concentrate for more than ten minutes.

Sometimes I wonder if all the coffee I drink is a result of a placebo, that maybe it is not the coffee keeping me awake, but sheer willpower and probably still too much sugar. A good amount of my paycheck goes toward my coffee habit. I am sure I could save a lot of money by buying a Keurig or a regular coffee pot, but I cannot bring myself to do it. I can never seem to get the right balance of cream and coffee. I would rather leave it up to the professionals—perhaps I am still not as grown up as I think I am.