The secret to discounted drinks at Starbucks at 874 Comm Ave

I skipped my first class this morning. Maybe that’s where the bad karma started. I, like many students at BU, am a frequenter of the Starbucks located on 874 Commonwealth Ave across from CGS.

I am notorious for ordering two drinks at once, a venti passion tea lemonade with no sugar, and a tall nonfat latte with one pump of classic (that’s one liquid sugar, in Starbucks language).

My beef with Starbucks started yesterday, on a cold, rainy Tuesday. I was feeling down, maybe by midterms, maybe by the weather, so I didn’t do my typical double order. I just ordered a latte, but I was really craving my PTL. So, I ordered it online in the ten-minute period between classes.

You should have seen my face when Nathan, my favorite employee told me they were out of lemonade.

“We can make you a passion tea and mix it with a lime refresher if you want”, he told me.

What could be the harm in that? I’m a pretty optimistic person, so I was down.

I should have just taken the straight tea, because I was so, so wrong for thinking that combo would be a good idea. Never mix the two. What resulted was a syrupy liquid drink that tasted like Margaritaville Lime Margarita Mix. The only rational solution would be to take this home, blend it with ice and tequila, and drink my Starbucks sorrows away, but I had work to do, and I wasn’t gonna let one bad Starbucks experience bring me down.

The friendly employees told me I could take this lemonade dilemma to their supervisor Ryan who would be in at 11 the following day. Apparently Ryan was responsible for the orders, and it just slipped his mind to order lemonade. Ugh, Ryan.

As Nathan made my drink, he asked me if I had tried the cold brew yet. It looked good, and I made a mental note to try it soon. Which brings us to this morning.

Like I said, I skipped my first class today. I was late to get out of bed, so I ordered my Uber, and ordered a grande cold brew with some coconut milk.

Not only was my order not made when I got there, but they were out of fucking cold brew.

Nathan smiled as he told me they were out of that too. I thought they were fucking with me, like seriously I thought it was a joke.

It was not a joke.

I was at a loss for words. Luckily, the guys at that branch are all good sports, and I could never hold a grudge against my Starbucks baristas, but come on.

“Damn, this is just not my week. This is literally the definition of first world problems”, I said out loud to myself.

Ryan chimed in, “Seriously! But this is higher up there on the rankings of first world problems.” At least you get it, Ryan. He then did what any good Starbucks manager would do.

“Make her a trenta of whatever she wants”, he said.

So now, as I sit here with this unnecessarily large coffee, basically OD’ing on caffeine, I’ve really started to wonder how we can solve this issue.

The lemonade shipment doesn’t come in until Saturday. So here’s a tip for all of my fellow Starbucks frequenters: order a passion tea lemonade from now until Saturday, and you can virtually get whatever drink you want, and if you make enough of a fuss about it, you might even be able to score yourself a trenta.

Happy Hump Day!