Cows in the Mist

I listen to NPR. Not only that, but I count myself an annual victim of their pledge drive. If the coffee cup, fleece, jeans, and old running shoes costume didn’t already give it away, it should now be as clear as a North Cascades free-stone stream — I am a liberal Seattleite.

All other tangents aside, on my commute this morning while listening to NPR, I was amused to hear the sponsorship pitch (it’s not a commercial; this is commercial-free radio) from Chevy, promoting the Volt, which is billed as a battery-powered vehicle with “an on-board, range-extending power source” (i.e., a gasoline engine). Seriously. Who are the marketeers who thought to disguise the gas engine in the mostly battery-powered car as “an on-board, range-extending power source?”

I stopped by my local Starbucks this morning on my way to work — a treat I generally have denied myself of late, since the $1.70 for twelve ounces of drip coffee (which I rarely finish) is too much. You probably know, if you are one of the millions of people who go to Starbucks every day, that when you order coffee in one of the busier locations, the cashier “calls” the drink to the barista, who then “calls” it back for confirmation (eerily similar to the call and response used in many religious services, no?).

Today marks a watershed moment not only for Starbucks, but also in the development of the English language, for I will swear by anything you ask me to that I heard the cashier call this drink: iced, tall, non-fat, no-ice — milk.