It must be MIRACLE syrup!

I went to the coffee shop today, to feed the coffee addiction. Mmmm. While I was there, I had a very depressing conversation with the coffee-wench. I refuse to call her a barista, one: because it seems like a vast overstatement of her skills, and two: because she was kind of wench-y, as you'll soon hear about.

I ordered my non-fat decaf caramel macchiato (because apparently I love to waste my money on overpriced coffee drinks. It's so yummy, though! Why couldn't I become addicted to some cheap truck stop coffee?). Do you know what she has the nerve to ask me? "Do you want sugar-free caramel syrup?" No, I don't. If I did, I would have ordered it. That was what I thought, but what I said was, "No thanks, I don't like fake sugar."

Her response: "There's no fake sugar in this." Really? Do you have miracle syrup? If it's sugar-free and there's no fake sugar, what makes it sweet? I'm sarcastic in my head, but what came out of my mouth was a friendly "I'm sure there must be some kind of artificial sweetener in it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be sweet."

"No," she assured me. "Here, you can even look at it." She handed me the bottle, which I spent one second perusing until I found it, right near the top of the ingredient list. "This has sucralose in it," I tell her. She stares at me blankly. "That's Splenda," I clarify.

"No, it doesn't say Splenda," she insists, starting to really get an attitude. Her opinion that I'm an idiot is just dripping from every word by now.

"I know," I answer. "Splenda is a brand name..." Here's where I finally decide to drop it. "I'll just have the regular syrup, please."

She makes my coffee, I take it and rush out as my boys are really starting to get a little crazy. As I sit in the car and take the first sip, I realize, yep, she used the sugar-free. See, wench-y. What did I tell you. If I hadn't already strapped both boys in their car seats, I would have gone back in and asked for a new one. Of course, that probably would have been a spit-flavored coffee, so perhaps this is for the best.

Oh, I drank my coffee anyway. What can I say, I'm addicted. But now I have this gross tinny-metallic aftertaste that I just can't get rid of, even with brushing. Yuck.

Random unrelated thought, adult humor warning: B-man is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, so we've been trying to teach him about it so that he knows not to take food from people and to ask if things have nuts in it. Both boys are getting really interested in talking about it. That's the set-up to the story.

So, last night at dinner, N-man busts out, unrelated to anything we were currently talking about, "Mommy eats peanuts!" I don't know why he said this. For the time being, we keep a nut-free house so I *don't* eat peanuts. Okay, this doesn't sound like adult humor yet, right? Well, when the boys say "peanuts", it sounds like a word for the male genitalia. So, his happy announcement of "Mommy eats peanuts" sounds like something far worse than he intended. TK and I couldn't keep a straight face, which is the hardest part of parenting. Because as soon as you laugh, they do whatever they're doing, except more. So, B-man picks up the chant, and now both of them are practically yelling "Mommy eats peanuts, Mommy eats peanuts".

Thank goodness we were in the house and not out to dinner. Although I'm sure they'll try this one again. They're probably waiting until my in-laws are in town.