My husband and I took the kids to Maine last weekend for a perfect fall getaway. We planned to go apple picking, pumpkin buying, and country fair attending. With all the beautiful scenic driving we did it seems that we saw signs for fall flavored everything everywhere...we started talking about how in the last few years it seems that the pumpkin craze becomes more and more intense each fall. First it was pumpkin flavored beer. Next came pumpkin donuts, iced coffee, muffins, etc. Recently I saw pumpkin wine. I thought wine was made out of grapes? How does this even happen? Fermented pumpkin? I'm just not sure...
What I've come to realize is that our generation...the Xers and the Yers...are obsessed with trying to capture the moment. Everything we do is to create the ambiance and atmosphere that we hope to look back on and remember fondly someday. We are, so to speak, attempting to live our present lives in the form of fond memories. We subconsciously think that if we have candles that smell like Mom's Famous Apple Pie and if we have drinks by the fire that taste like homemade pumpkin bread then we are creating a cozy life that we can appreciate later on. How many people posted facebook status updates about "hoodie weather and pumpkin lattes" this past weekend when the weather finally felt a little brisk?
The truth is, those memories we have as children that we are trying to hang on to didn't come from scented candles and fruity beer...they came from actually baking apple pies with your family and having a mother who took the time to roast a turkey in the oven all day so it smelled delicious and who after your bath to comb out your hair and tuck you into bed smelling all delicious like Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo. These are some of the reasons why I couldn't wait to be a mom. I couldn't wait to do things like this with and for my kids. There are specific days that stand out in my mind of my child hood and I often think about what I would have to do as a parent to make sure my kids have those same feelings to look back on.
And yet, on our way to go apple picking, while my children wail in the backseat of the car and I stretch from the passenger seat to search for a binky that has going missing in action I yell to my husband to stop at the nearest Dunkin Donuts because I have a god-darned head ache and I want to finally try this supposed magical thing called pumpkin iced coffee. Here goes nothing.
Freakin Dunkin Donuts, man. They never get it right. After all the anticipation and conversation about pumpkin iced coffee those jerks gave me a medium iced regular. Why do I bother?
A few days later, back in the good old city, I was out running errands. My goal was to get my grocery shopping done, but I thought, hey, I can't very well grocery shop without a delicious iced coffee...and I still haven't tried that pumpkin flavor....
So then I realized I had to go to the ATM if I was going to get a coffee and I wasn't about to pay a fee and I had no idea where my nearest bank was to the grocery story I'd been heading to. I plugged the bank name into my GPS, followed it blindly until it told me that I had reached my destination, only to find out I was literally in the middle of Rte 1 at just about the only place on the entire stretch of road with not a single business around. I tried again, found the correct address of the bank, and after that took my in the total opposite direction, I finally found a dunkin donuts, ordered the darn thing, and headed to the grocery store.
You jerks! Pumpkin iced coffee tastes like soap!
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