Is This a Cheese Shop?

 So, I've been happy that the friendly neighborhood Starbucks is open again so that once a week or so I can take my laptop down, put the earphones on,  and work away* at one of their little tables. I was a little disappointed the first week that when I ordered tea they were out of English Breakfast. I went with Earl Grey instead --a mistake, but at least I'd know better next time.

The second week they were again out of English Breakfast, but rather than oil of Bergamot I went with a hot chai tea latte. Good, though not what I really wanted.

The third week they's run out of English Breakfast, so I went the chai route again. Starting to get annoyed.

The fourth week, today, they didn't have English Breakfast. I asked was it discontinued, did they not carry tea-flavored tea anymore? They said no, they carried it, they were just out today. So I ordered a cup of hot water. Techically I ordered a large Earl Grey but told them not to put in the tea bags yet. Then once I got safely to a table I disposed of the E.G. teabags and used two teabags I'd brought from home.** Call it a workaround.

There must be a way to get these folks to sell me a cup of tea. But so far finding out how is, shall we say,  a work in progress.

--John R.

--current reading: THE WORM OUROBOROS

*today it was finalizing the text and trimming back the endnotes for my piece on Wm Hope Hodgson

**Market Spice's Northwest Breakfast blend

UPDATE

. . . And the next time I went in and ordered a hot tea, they got me a hot tea. English Breakfast. Tea flavored tea, with no fuss.  Which makes me luckier than Dent Arthur Dent.  --JDR