CurlyShavings

(This Scribbling dates back to November 4th, 2005.)

It happened again. Crossing Euclid Avenue from my favorite Starbucks™, I felt a familiar sensation as drips from my Grande Komodo Dragon scalded my fingers.

I've noticed it for years: the "SOLO Traveler© Lid" (No. TL 316 LID) just doesn't form a perfect seal around the top of the No. 316TA 1182 I-05 cup 16oz (473ml) Special Design Hot Cup that usually accompanies me back from my twice-weekly trip to Starbucks™. The cup's seam gets in the way.

Now, there are really two problems here.

The seam leaks when the cup's liquid sloshes onto that seam/lid intersection. That's largely a nuisance (i.e., dribbling down my fingers as I navigate the concrete and asphalt patchwork currently making up Euclid Avenue). Whose fault is that? It may be the City of Cleveland's for the now-incessant excavate-repair-rest-repeat they've been practicing this year and are poised to continue for another few. [Update: Current Euclid construction completion estimate at our corner is 2nd quarter 2008.] Perhaps it's SOLO's for not engineering a tight enough seal between the lid and the cup.

But it's probably my own fault for not allowing any "room for cream". (At 10.6 cents per fluid ounce, [Update: Now 11.1875] I want every drop I can get into my cup.)

The other problem is what I call the Lid/Seam Alignment Problem.

When the seam is within 30 degrees of the lid's opening, the leak ceases being a nuisance problem and now becomes a laundry problem. And because I drink my Java in the AM, it's not
an end-of-the-day laundry problem but a first-thing-in-the-morning laundry problem.

Here's what happens: When the seam is within 30 degrees of the lid's opening and you position the cup to deliver its payload to your waiting mouth ("Caution: Contents Hot"), a tiny gap between the lid and the cup's imperfect rim allows a drop of coffee to escape to the outside of the cup. If you collect a couple of these drops under the lid's edge, watch out because it will soon let go and deposit itself on your tie, your shirt, your blouse—whatever is in its path.

You get to wear that stain the rest of the day.

My frustration here is that this whole issue is avoidable. If my Barista would just ensure that the cup's seam is opposite the lid's opening (twelve-o'clock rather than four–to–eight-o'clock), this could all be avoided.

Or perhaps I should stop at the counter, inspect the Lid/Seam Alignment and perform a Number 316 un-alignment whenever I see that such an alignment exists.

I approached Bobby who seems to run this Starbucks™ (name has not been changed to protect his innocence mostly because he's such a great guy). He confirmed the problem and went on to disclose that it isn't in any of the training manuals and doesn't appear to be widespread knowledge in the Barista community.

Why? Why is it that everyone but Starbucks™ knows not to put the lid's opening in line with the cup's seam? Ask any serious consumer of their dihydrotrimethylpurinedione and they can tell you some variation of the "drip on my shirt" story.

Until it is added to their corporate training materials and becomes widespread Barista knowledge, it looks like it is up to me to save my shirt and always check for Lid/Seam Alignment before that first sip.

Now if they could just acknowledge and address the Insufficient Air Intake Port Problem…