Down with Dunkin Donuts

I think Starbucks coffee is garbage and an absolute rip-off (although they make a mean rice krispie treat). Hence, my coffee of choice when purchasing is Dunkin Donuts. There's been this big surge of them in Manhattan in the past few years, and a big hullaballoo about "coffee class wars" - mainly, the upwardly mobile yuppies who send their kindergartners to $30,000 a year private schools drink the grandiose Starbucks, and the young, urban broke-ass hipsters prefer the DD. Personally, this does make some sense to me, since DD is a cheaper and better cup of coffee than Starbucks, especially since the 'Bucks continues to raise their prices and shrink their cups. I digress.

This past fall a new DD opened a block from my office. Oh, devil store! Unless I want to lose my mind, I refuse to go in there before 11 AM, because one thing that the 'Bucks has going for it that DD doesn't, is that it is a well-oiled machine. Think of Starbucks as the Lexus of coffee shops and DD the Dodge Neon. Functional, and that's about it. Again, I digress.

So every now and again, an afternoon calls for a DD run. This afternoon proved to be no exception, so I went with my friend MAZ and grabbed some joe. My order is not hard. Medium coffee with skim milk. I tossed in a Splenda - again, not hard.

What do I get? Coffee, skim milk, and sugar. HOW HARD is it to put one packet of Splenda instead of 5 scoops of sugar?! I mean, I know Splenda is made from sugar, but that's stretching it.

DD is testing my nerve. I normally put the Splenda in myself, but wanted to give them another shot. I was trusting today. I will not trust again. They will get very few more chances. Until ice coffee season. Then it's free game again.