CarolynBahm.com

August 14, 2019 · 9:27 am

Dear Starbucks employees …

I am getting corrected with increasing frequency when I order my favorite breakfast item from your menu. It’s really starting to lose its luster.

It’s the Sous Vide Egg White Egg Bites with the Roasted Red Peppers. Or at least that’s what it was named when the menu item debuted. Currently, your menu dubs it the Sous Vide Egg Bites: Egg White & Red Pepper.

Now, granted, that’s a shitty product name. Too long. Too confusing. And no clear key word or phrase in the long, long, long name. But you guys picked it.

(Why not just call this product “Bites”? You could have Ham Bites, Chicken Bites, Pepper Bites and Bacon Bites. Boom! You’re done.)

Could you all just get together and decide how you want me to order it? Because you all want to hear it different ways.

One wants me to ask for the “Egg White Bites.” And if I don’t specify “egg whites” she seems to have no idea of what product I’m referencing. How confusing can this actually be?

Another acts confused if I say “Sous Vide” in the order.

A third got huffy today when I asked for the sous vide item “with the roasted red peppers” and said there are TWO that have that ingredient. (Yes, but only one of them has it in the product’s name. And if I were ordering the ham one, don’t you think “ham” would come up in the description? Here’s your Derp certificate.)

Miniwheats with almond milk and fresh strawberries at home is starting to sound a LOT more appealing.

Truth survives — or is born from — scrutiny

Photo by Shane Lin via Flickr.com; some rights reserved.

One of the YouTube channels I watch regularly is that of an atheist speaker, Seth Andrews, because he’s a calm and reasoned speaker on a topic that’s important to me, and he has a deep, mellow radio voice I could listen to for hours. Today, I found a speech of his on another channel and fell in love with this part of it: He mentioned how young people from religious families often email him to say they are having doubts about faith and they donâ€™t know what to do. That puts him in an awkward position, he said, because he wants to be honest while also honoring their family’s boundaries. Hereâ€™s how he said he typically responds:

â€œYou know, you are under the guardianship and authority of your mother and father, and they need to be respected. At the same time, even if youâ€™re in church every day, use this time to get information, because good decisions come from good information. If you have to go to church, fine â€“ learn the Bible. Learn what your church is teaching. Learn what other churches are teaching. Sponge up information as best you can. There will come a day when you are making life decisions on your own, and you will have then been able to use this time to develop the arsenal you need for battle. And then you can determine what you want to stand for, and what you accept as being based on the evidence, and what you accept as moral. And you can carve your own path. And until then, you know, you are a child under the authority of your mother and father. Respect them, be the best kid you can, and be a sponge.â€

That’s a good answer and a pretty fair one, don’t you think? It’s hard as a teen to accept counsel that tells you to be patient and pay attention rather than bowing up to parents and fighting them tooth and nail. But it’s good advice. My favorite part: “Good decisions come from good information.”

Motel Negative Six

Nastiest motel ever. Motel 6 at 7707 Lee Highway, Chattanooga.

We only stayed here because it’s where our youngest daughter’s rowing team was staying.

I have low expectations when it’s this cheap — you can expect thin, rough towels that they are stingy with. Ditto for the cheap mattress and thin pillows, plus the use of an exterior stairway instead of an elevator. I was even fine with expectations of thin walls and noisy kids (who were surprisingly quiet, though). I hoped they would have a hair dryer as I didn’t pack one, but I was philosophical when I saw that they did not. But check this out for Room 215.

NEGATIVE FACTS:

The floors LOOKED clean. But this morning after my shower, I dried off, got mostly dressed and put my makeup on. When I went to put my socks on, the bottoms of my feet were BLACK. Ew, ew, ew. I’m not a clean freak and I’ve certainly had dirty feet before, but that was GROSS.
No trash can or bag.
No spindle in the toilet paper holder.
Husband couldn’t completely lift the toilet seat because the toilet tank leaned over onto it.
Probably close to a dozen cigarette burns on the edge of the tub.
A partially peeled off paint job on the tub.
No shampoo or conditioner.
A busted doorjamb on the bathroom door so you couldn’t even click it closed, much less lock it.
The bathroom doorknob was hanging loose.
The bathroom door (back side) was FILTHY.
One electrical outlet was either partially burned on had some dried opaque stain. I didn’t check closely.
Cigarette burns in the blanket and on the bedspread.
Curtains were half off the rod and had cellophane tape on one end and what appeared to be nail holes along the edge of the other side.
Not a big deal, just ugly: The old TV mount was left on the wall when they installed another TV on the dresser.
Inside of the microwave wasn’t throughly wipes out.
The door and wall next to it had clearly not been wiped down in a LONG time.
Not in my room, but one of the kids on my daughter’s team reportedly picked up the remote control in her room and a few bugs came crawling out.
Our daughter’s room had no heat.
Oddly enough, this hotel was OVERBOOKED and out of other rooms. We were tired and it was late, so we stayed anyway.
I pulled bedding off and checked for bedbugs but I didn’t see signs of them. The mattress was seriously stained though.

For my peace of mind, I’m glad I had no black light to check for stains on the blankets.

And it makes sense that the room number on the wall next to the room’s door had Braille on it. The blind are probably the only reason this hotel has a two- or three-star rating (depending on where you check).

NEUTRAL FACTS:

Our room smelled strongly of fragrant pipe tobacco (not smoked, just the tobacco). That actually didn’t bother me. Made me think of my maternal Papaw.

POSITIVE FACTS: