Well, Dirty Mick has dained to pass on another Guest Post. Apparently he's "very busy" doing "important stuff" so he doesn't have time to regularly post on this "sorry excuse for a blog." Enjoy this one.

In honor of recent additions to the Larry clan I would like to offer a brief comparison between Macchiatos and kids, which I happily admit, is really more of a comparison between baristas and parents. This will all be from a cynical outsider’s perspective, and I, like all good critics, do not claim to be smarter, better, or more capable than the poor, filter tossing, sod that I am about to indirectly lambaste.

I have had moments–and I do not think that I am alone–when a little child has come waltzing up behind me and proceeded to whine or cry or, if they have managed to learn a few words, beg for something. Sometimes they run around and knock things over, and other times they simply make obscene, distracting noises and interrupt my daydreaming. Regardless of the disturbance though, the rambunctious child is almost always followed by an adult making excuses.

“The babysitter lets her do anything she wants, how am I supposed to compete with that?”
“School lunches are too sugary, little Jimmy always gets so hyper.”
“He has such a potty mouth sometimes, why doesn’t that FCC just take South Park off the air?”’

On the other hand if a child does something good, like picking up an old lady’s jar of apple sauce, receiving high marks in penmanship, or sleeping quietly through the entirety of a cross country airplane ride, this same adult takes all of the credit.

“Sometimes I just hold her and make airplane noises to practice. Yeah, really, yeah.”
“I know I made him do them every night, I even posted his best ones on my blog.”
“That’s because I read to her all the time. No, of course we don’t own a tv. What kind of slacker parent do you think I am?!!”

This fluid relationship between action and result–and I’m sure some of you are already onto my little comparison­–is often reflected in the arrogant ramblings of your friendly, neighborhood barista.

Say you are caffeine deprived and anxious and the only thing that you want in life, the one simple thing, is a smooth, sweet macchiato, delicious and prim and aesthetically pleasing. But when your drink comes out a thimble of acrid tar water, topped with an almost offensive dribble of over-foamed milk. The first thing you will hear out of the barista’s mouth is an excuse, some form of blame aimed at any number of uncontrollable forces.

“This non-organic milk is just molecularly opposed to being foamed correctly, really… smell it”
“The temperature of the room is always off this time of day, it has something to do with the albedo of our new La Marzocco…yeah, I know…what’s a dual boiler system anyway?”
“The moon was full last night, tides are all crazy… Schomer couldn’t have even pulled that shot.”

And of course this same barista will always insist that the perfect ones, the macchiatos worth his or her weight in solid gold peaberries, were entirely their doing.

“Look! Did you see those trickles at the bottom, just like a root system, amazing, I know.”
“Sometimes I don’t believe it either, chocolaty and fruity at the same time, like one of those Cadbury bars. But $%&#, I could make stale Starbuck’s taste like that.”
“Look a five leaf rosetta…what?..Cappuccinos are just big macchiatos, you know that’s what you really wanted.”

It’s nice to know though that there are baristas in the world like Larry who are humble and stylish and never disappoint, even if it is only because they are just lucky, every single time.