The Starbucks Effect

Every now and then I enjoy a Starbucks.  Not often, because I'm poor and I have trouble reconciling the fact that a cup of hot water that has been run through some ground-up seeds costs the same thing as a hamburger AND has more calories.

But occasionally, I do enjoy a Carmel Macchiato (whatever the hell a Macchiato is)  or a Coconut Mocha Frapaccunio (yet another made up word). 

I've noticed something when I do.

The first time, I thought something was wrong with me.   The second time, I wondered if I was the only one.  The third time, I asked a friend, because that's how you know you're  not alone on this big ol' rock hurtling through space, you ask someone else if they are as jacked up as you are.   If they are, you're normal.  If they're not, then you ask around until someone else has the same thing going on that you do, and then you consider the friends that don't have it, the weird ones.

Oh yes, my friends, that's how the human mind works.

So anyway, the first time I drank a Starbucks drink, I noticed that my pee smelled exactly like coffee the next couple of times I went to the bathroom. 

How odd, I thought.

When I asked around, lo and behold, other suffered the same fate in the name of their caffiene buzz.    Some didn't, but lots did.

Now right now, you are thinking to yourself, "Self, the last time I drank a Starbucks did my pee smell funny?"

I submit to you, it did.   Due to my very fancy and formal friend-polling of people as they leave the bathroom, I submit to you that about three out of four people suffer from Starbucks pee.   

Yes. Three out of four.  It's almost a syndrome, I tell you.

Recently, because the java goddesses love me, and because I have a generous mother-in-law who gives cash AND presents for Christmas *and* since I have a friend who sniffs out bargains, I became the proud owner of a Keurig coffee center or a what-the-heck-do-they-put-in-those-expensive-little-cups-of-coffee-goodness?-Crack?  coffee machine.

I paid only 44 bucks for a brand new Keurig and felt like because of this, I could splurge on several of the boxes of caffeine-infused crack the coffeemaker requires.

I got morning hot tea.  I got coconut mocha coffee.  I got coffee shop coffee.  I got lightly roasted coffee.  I got dark Sumatra blend coffee.

The result?

Every single one, except for the hot tea, makes my pee smell like coffee.   Every. One.

So here's your assignment, you Keurig devotees.

Go brew a cup of coffee.  Drink it up.  Pee.  And then tell me I'm not alone.

Please.

Tell me, I'm not the only one. Tell. Me.