From behind the bar and over the counter.

No, this is not the money shot from an awkward Starbucks-affiliated pornographic film.
No, the cup is not defective.
And no, this is not my drink.

This is the latest craze (and when I say craze, I mean a fucking epidemic) to hit my store and every other that offers “thai” or condensed milk. This is a combination of an iced tea, specifically passion tea in the photo, and thai drizzled on the inside or “walls” of the cup. Through the help of smart phones and instant internet access, this Frankenstein creation has infected the minds of the innocent and impressionable. Just look up #thaiwalls on your neighborhood media-sharing network and you’ll see what I mean.

Normally, thai is used with espresso, be it a latte, americano, what have you. This is Starbucks’ attempt at mimicking the beloved iced coffee served in pho restaurants across my state. I say state because ever-so conveniently, mine’s is the only one that offers this syrup; a gift and a curse, really.

I personally love thai. When used correctly, the heavenly notes of cream and sugar lightly prance over your taste buds, leaving you with a lingering buzz to last throughout the day. Incorrectly, it’s jizz in a cup: sticky and messy with a feeling of vast emptiness as you wonder why you succumbed to this bastard child of Starbucks’ debauchery.

I’m not against change. I’m not against freedom to sugar and calories. I’m not against anything the customer is willing to pay for.

What I’m against is carpal tunnel.

I really asked myself why I hate this customization so much. Yeah, it gets really annoying to fill up bottle after bottle of thai because it comes in a very inconvenient can that you literally need to scrape all the sauce out of. Sure it’s a waste of money to get thai smeared on the walls of the cup when it can simply be shaken in, giving the drink the entire full taste it duly deserves. But most of all, the actual act of squeezing a bottle to create thai “art” on the walls of a cup, a cup that will eventually be thrown away and never looked at again, puts a lot of unnecessary stress on the shoulder and wrist. This stress turns into a numbing pain night after night until you can barely lift your arm past your shoulder, let alone make a frappuccino.

I am barely getting through my quarter-life crisis (i.e. marriage, job security, wrinkles!)  No job, not even Starbucks, is worth damaging my nerves for the rest of my life.

So I resent thai walls. I resent any walls. It’s bad enough Howard Schultz’ ideas of hand-crafting every drink one by one and repeating the same motions over and over have activated pain in my joints that I only thought possible in retirement homes. Now I have you, the consumer, requesting senseless designs on a disposable cup that could’ve easily been added directly to your already diabetic beverage?

I say nay.

But alas, I can only speak for my arm and the many other arms who would rather fling syrup into your mouth than on a cup. That way, you can feel exactly as I do after a shift, much like an old washed-up adult film star…

…numb and sticky.