I have a confession, you guys. It might just expel me from the Society of All Women Aged 18-35, but I just can't go on pretending anymore. I have to come clean.
I don't really like Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Lattes.
There. I said it.
I like other pumpkin-flavored things--even other coffee shops' pumpkin-flavored lattes. Just not Starbucks'.
It tastes weird, guys. It has a funny aftertaste and the truth is I don't care for it at all. Whatever syrup they use doesn't taste like pumpkin. Plus it's actually orange, which kind of weirds me out.
I have tried, season after season, to like these things.
Every fall I enter with renewed enthusiasm, hoping that I'm just remembering wrong or the baristas messed it up the last couple times I tried. This time will be different, I tell myself. On its face, it should work. Espresso? Good. Pumpkin-cinnamon flavor? Good. Skim milk? Good.
But no. It's always the same.
I just sip it down bit by bit, trying to justify it and tell myself I am enjoying it, but I eventually give up halfway through and throw it away.
And I have come to the conclusion that I like the idea of Starbucks' pumpkin spice lattes much more than I actually like the latte itself.
I'm just trying desperately to fit in with the rest of women my age who are obsessed with it so I can tweet about it later, and that's no way to live, right?
So I am vowing, right here and now, no matter HOW much I am tempted to, no matter how much I want to be a part of the PSL Club, no matter how much I think things might have changed and I might like it now, I will not order another PSL from Starbucks. No more.
Because I end up wasting $4 and a perfectly good coffee experience, when I could have just stuck with the ol' faithful vanilla latte and been much happier, and not had to live with an intense feeling of buyer's remorse.
[I'm extremely susceptible to buyer's remorse, by the way. I'm so indecisive that I never know if I really made the right decision on which shirt to buy or whether I might find something else better later on. Same with trying something new at a restaurant I don't go to very often. This is why I always order the same thing, and why I should do the same at Starbucks.]
So, fellow women and everyone on social media ever, reject me if you must, but I just can't keep doing this. I love coffee, and I am ruining it for myself.
If we go to Starbucks together, I will get a vanilla latte. Or I will contemplate a pumpkin latte and you will say (because you're such a good friend), "hey, remember, you don't actually LIKE those. You just want to like them." And I will thank you for your kind reminder and go back to the vanilla latte that rarely disappoints, unless the barista is terrible at their job.
Tell the truth: do you like PSL's? Am I just crazy or are there others like me out there?