Adam Carolla - Daddy, Stop Talking! - And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting

And, finally…

Complicated Starbucks Order Chick: I was behind one of these clowns not too long ago, and the order was so inane and complicated I had to run to buy a notepad, just so I could write it down and make fun of her on the podcast. She ordered a “grande skinny vanilla latte, light foam, extra hot.” Let’s break that down. Grande. It’s a fucking medium. Just say medium. Skinny. I’m sure the skim milk instead of regular and fake cancer-causing sugar is going to make a fucking difference when you try to squeeze your ass into those yoga pants. Vanilla. If you really want vanilla, go to McDonald’s and get a shake. Coffee is supposed to be coffee. Light foam? Do you like foam or don’t you? You’d need a fucking microscope to tell the difference between the regular amount of foam and light foam. And “extra hot.” How does that even work? Coffee is as hot as it is. Extra hot just means undrinkable for longer. So am I, as the next coffee orderer going to burn my tongue when I get a cup of the scorching batch they made for you because you need to make a spectacle of yourself?

Let’s take a look at the bigger picture. This was attention-seeking behavior. If I hadn’t been behind this chick, if she were alone in that Starbucks, she would have ordered a medium black coffee and called it a day. But because there were witnesses, she had to make her order as long as the Magna Carta. Asking for “light foam” and “extra hot” is just a way of complicating things so that there’s one more thing the lowly barista can screw up for her highness to complain about.

These retards are retarding the process. Congratulations, bitch, you’ve successfully slowed down everyone else’s life to make it about you. You don’t love foam, you love you . I opened the door to the place and hit someone in the ass due to the line you caused, because the poor Starbucks kid is now heating up Bunsen burners and putting shit in centrifuges so that you can have your perfect cup of coffee. It’s not even coffee anymore. Starbucks is diabolical. Calorically, what this pretentious bitch was ordering is probably as bad as a Blizzard from Dairy Queen, but they’ve called it a coffee, so she gets to feel like she’s not just buying and consuming a hot milkshake. This is also bullying the person behind the counter. You’re lording your power over the poor tattooed teen.

There should be two lines, one for regular people like me who just want a caffeine delivery system. There would be a sign reading “Normal” above it. In that line, you can only order coffee and, when you do, it’s just called a medium, and you put the milk and sugar in yourself. Then there would be another line with a sign above it reading “Poser Douche,” for the assholes who want to order the seasonal macchiato, light foam, extra hot, with soy milk, easy on the nutmeg.

I hope you kids have taken this warning to heart and will avoid becoming any of these assholes. But with my luck, Natalia, you’re convinced that you used to be Cleopatra and are reading this right now at a Starbucks, sipping on a skinny peppermint mochaccino with soy milk while Sonny, who used to be fat, but is now thin, is listening to it on audiobook while he runs a half-marathon to benefit “survivors” of circumcision.

I KNOW THATall the shit I’m talking about the twins is going to be used against me at some point, so I want to take some time to set the record straight on a couple of things that they’ll surely bring up to their future therapists. I’m going to address this directly to you, guy with suede patches on his elbows, and Jewish broad with the dream catcher on the wall.

First, I’ve done therapy myself, so I know how this works. And I respect it. Ironically, I come from a family of therapists. My grandmother was a sex therapist who worked for the VA and once famously asked at the dinner table what a rim job was, because one of her vets had brought it up in group that day. My dad became a therapist back in the 1990s. He had been reading self-help and philosophy books my whole childhood anyway (instead of coming to my football games), and eventually decided to go pro.

And, to his credit, when I was nineteen, he sat me down and pretty much said, “You’re going to be a mess. Your mother is a disaster, I’m a train wreck; you’re going to need some therapy.” I was making seven bucks an hour digging ditches at the time, so he said he was going to find me a therapist, and that it was going to be a woman so I could work on my mom issues and that he would pay for half and I’d pay for the other half. For someone making minimum wage coming up with even half of the seventy or eighty dollars an hour for a decent therapist was rough. But it was worth it.

To all of you reading this who are on the fence about therapy because of the cost: It’s smart money, spend it. That one hundred bucks an hour pays off down the road when you learn through therapy how to get out of your own way, stop self-sabotaging and thus make good decisions about relationships and career. Think of it as an investment in yourself. Simply going to therapy helps. Just carving out an hour for yourself, and deciding that you and your life are worth spending some time and money on makes a difference. That simple act alone boosts your self-esteem. Don’t think of going to therapy as “I’m a broken pile of crap and need someone to fix me,” think of it as “I’m going to change myself for the better instead of crying, masturbating and blaming my parents for the rest of my life.”

So, back to blaming my parents. I was such a broken pile of crap from my childhood, therapy was inevitable. I’ve done all kinds of therapy: individual, couples and group. Group therapy is kind of rough, especially when you want to leave the group and there’s resistance. Once, when I tried to leave my group therapy, a chick confronted me, telling me I was in denial about how bad I was and that I needed to stay. I think it was her issue, really, some dad shit she needed to work out that she was putting on me. Group therapy is like having all the baggage that comes with a relationship with a crazy chick without the spirited crazy chick sex.

I’ve also done regular one-on-one individual therapy and appreciated the experience, though I don’t love it when a group of therapists share an office. It’s uncomfortable when you see another person sitting in the waiting room and start wondering what their issue is while attempting to avoid eye contact. Especially if you have regular appointments, you see the same guy every week and can hear him in the next room. Seriously, I’ve heard shit coming through the vent system I will never unhear. I’ve heard “My father wouldn’t stop raping me…” while I’m sitting there complaining about my Lamborghini. Makes me realize that most of my issues fall squarely into that rich white people problems category.

I’ve also done the couples counseling thing, which I didn’t like much. But I still think it works, just not in the way it’s supposed to. The reason couples counseling is effective is because you have to report to someone, typically a woman, who is siding with your woman about how horrible you are. At least that was the case with me. I’ve had people tell me that couples therapy worked for them and saved their relationship. For me, it was just a probation officer that I had to report to. So on Tuesday, when she comes home and wants to unload about her boss and you grunt, walk past her, holding a sandwich on the way back to your Duck Dynasty marathon, knowing you have couples counseling on Friday forces you to turn around and listen. It’s like mandatory drug testing in the workplace. It doesn’t make people not want to do drugs, it just makes people understand and avoid the consequences.