early morning birthday freebie, confusion at no extra cost

Remember how I took the afternoon off work on my birthday, to go out and hunt for birthday freebies? Well, while I was frittering away my day, the clock was ticking on a deadline at work. I figured I could get it done and still have a nice afternoon off, if I went to work really early the next day.

I don't usually procrastinate, except for things I don't feel like doing. Okay, I always procrastinate for things that I don't feel like doing. This task was due Wednesday morning. It involved compiling the budget projections of everyone at work into one overall figure for our facility, and sending up the budget pipe. I knew I could do it, but I was a bit afraid I'd run into an obstacle, like forgetting how to add, or losing my ability to ask my co-workers to give me their numbers, or something like that. Procrastination is like that, isn't it? It's almost worse than actually doing the thing. Nevertheless, I procrastinated until Wednesday morning to do a job that was due in on Wednesday morning.

I woke up at 5:15am, 15 minutes before my alarm, and jumped out of bed. I showered, dressed, fed the cat, packed lunch, petted the cat, ignored the dirty dishes in the sink from the night before, and ran out the door. I arrived at Starbucks just before 7am. My procrastinating mind thought, "If you get a free coffee at Starbucks you will feel like you have had a treat that includes a nice energizing jolt of caffeine, and you will be able to do this task about which you have been procrastinating.

I brought my Starbucks free birthday coffee drink coupon (which I received in the mail the day before my birthday). At the counter, I ordered a breakfast sandwich (Starbucks breakfast sandwiches are actually very good, not too much bread, lots of flavour), and a skinny peppermint mocha. At Starbucks, or any coffee place for that matter, I usually order a small no-room Americano because that's what I really want. But when something is free, for some reason you want the big expensive one, huh? Seeing as I have been eating goodies for the past 2 weeks I decided to get a "skinny" big free drink. Procrastinating brains can also be a bit absurd. Give me a blobber-glob extra hot, no whip!

The lady at the cash register took my card and said, "Was your birthday really that long ago?" Somehow in my early morning procrastination-hazed thinking, I interpreted this to mean, "You were born many, many years ago, weren't you?" I managed to say, "HUH?!?" She explained that she didn't say "Happy birthday" any more when people gave her the cards because sometimes they told her their birthday was 3 months ago. Oh. Okay. So you are not saying I must be really old. Good. I told her my birthday was just yesterday, so she and the barista wished me a hearty "Happy birthday!"

I walked around to the side counter to pick up my drink. The barista plunked a skinny caramel macchiato on the counter. I asked her if it was for someone else, then she realised she misread the code that the cashier lady had written on the side of the cup. She apologized, and began to make me a replacement drink. I stopped her and told her that the skinny caramel macchiato sounded even better than a skinny peppermint mocha. I told her I wanted the mistake drink, really! I said something stupid like, "This is the drink I was meant to have this morning." Well, she said "Really?" and "Are you sure?" and offered a couple more times to replace the drink. Then she gave me a coupon for another free drink, any kind, any size.

Moral of the story: confusion can be beneficial

question: about what do you procrastinate?

mompoet - I made the deadline with an hour to spare and accurate adding and full cooperation from contributing co-workers. The breakfast sandwich was yummy, especially with the mandarin orange I brought from home. "macchiato" spell checks to these choices: machination, machinate, Machiavelli, machinist 

Next time I go to Starbucks I will order a free, venti Skinny Machiavelli, and see what they give me.

pps venti spellchecks to many things, including Ventolin. Make that a Ventolin Skinny Machiavelli mmmmmmmm