August 29, 2017

The Pumpkin In Your Latte? It’s Supposed To Be There.

massonstock/Getty

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Pumpkin spice latte season is here, according to the drink’s official Twitter account (lol).

For years I have wondered in my mind, in my brain, why people like eating pumpkin-spiced lattes because pumpkin is disgusting. Have you ever eaten pumpkin? It’s disgusting. I had it once, as a youth, and it was disgusting and I have never had it again. Sure, pumpkin pie is popular with a certain sicko set, but I don’t know why they swallow that pie because pumpkin is disgusting. 

Every year in the run-up to Labor Day, the pumpkin-spiced latte craziness begins. People can be seen regularly running down the avenues shouting, “GIVE ME PUMPKIN-SPICED LATTES, I NEED THEM PLEASE GOD I NEED THEM. I’M NOT A VIOLENT PERSON BUT I WILL DO WHAT I HAVE TO DO TO GET THE PUMPKIN-SPICED LATTES I SO DESIRE. I HAVE A THIRST FOR BLOOD OR PUMPKIN-SPICED LATTES, AND ONE WAY OR ANOTHER IT WILL BE QUENCHED.”

But again, pumpkin, the orange thing children carve for Halloween, is yuckity-yuck. So, it’s like, why, brah? You dig?

(Sidenote: Even if we accept that you like pumpkin flavor for some weird emotional reason like you lost your virginity in a pumpkin patch or something, why would you only enjoy it in the early autumn? Why not have pumpkin-spiced lattes and everything else all the seasons of the year?)

So, anyway, I’m on the internet one day, very bright, merry, and gay, when I, in my own roundabout way, say, pumpkin-spice is disgusting.

And it starts slowly at first. Bop.

And then another bop. Bop bop.

Soon: bop bop bop bop bop bop.

and then we’re bopped out of the darkness into the light.

I thought, I can’t think why, that Starbucks would never lie. But boppity goddamn bop. Pumpkin spice is not pumpkin flavor.

It’s just like cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. So, that sounds pretty good, I’m thinking! And not disgusting, I’m thinking! “I look forward to ordering one,” I say to myself outloud. 

But, hold, stop, backtrack, buddy. This story isn’t over. That excitement in your belly? That thrill up your leg? That glint in your eye? Put a pin it it, my anti-pumpkin pumpkin-spice curious friend. 

Notice the dateline on that news story.

2014! I remember that year. That year was a friend of mine. This year is not that year. 2014 had Obama. 2017 has Trump. 2014 was an even number. 2017 is an odd number. 

The first rule of journalism is that time makes fake news of us all, and in doing the diligence that must be done this journalist found that the bop bop bops were false false false.

mphillips007 / Getty

I’m a pumpkin in 2017. (record scratch) I bet you’re wondering how I got here (in a latte). 

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte Nutrition Facts /

Starbucks.com

In 2014, the pumpkin-hungry mobs of Outrageville shamed Starbucks to un-lie about their pumpkin-spiced lattes and beginning in 2015 “real pumpkin” was added to the pumpkin-spice latte.

Fact check: No pants on fire.

From the dawn of time Starbucks lied (bad) about there being pumpkin (disgusting) in pumpkin-spiced lattes (potentially good) but then in 2014 the internet (bad, destroyer of things) forced Starbucks (liar) to tell the truth (good) and so Starbucks (bastard) instead of changing the name of the pumpkin-spiced latte to more honestly represent its actual ingredients (good?) changed the very nature of the “pumpkin-spice” recipe (contaminated and thus bad). 

So to you, purchaser of things and drinker of drinks in 2017,  your pumpkin-spice latte is not even the pumpkin-spice latte you fell in love with that one autumn in 2003, your first semester away at college, when everything was new and exciting, and though you still love the pumpkin-spice latte it is only because you want to love the pumpkin-spice latte and, if we’re being quite real, it has more to do with you and where your mind is out and less to do with Starbucks and their pumpkin-spiced latte, which is now filled with disgusting actual pumpkin, a change that, according to this poorly formatted Yahoo Beauty story from 2015, did not even make the drink healthier. 

Have a nice day.

Don’t @ me.

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