But let’s stop psychoanalyzing Starbucks’ false bravado – which would be a great drink name, by the way! – and let us examine the broader issue at hand: the fact that this ad is one of many examples of blatant propaganda and sophisticated coercion techniques to bring non-coffee drinkers into the coffee drinking world.

You don’t know me!

Us non-coffee drinkers are a rare, almost mystical breed – like a tired, delicate unicorn. For us, the pressure to join coffee culture has been steadily increasing with each year of resistance. Childhood without coffee was a breeze thanks to “real energy”. Coffee’s presence throughout high school was minimal, but a few maturity-craving friends were lost to this new morning routine. But by university or college, or any type of segway into the so-called “real world”, coffee became the elixir of life, so it was when most non-drinkers crossed over. Friends morphed into grande lattes, double doubles, free-trades or home brews. They became ventis, mochas, no-foams or cappuccinos. And we non-coffee drinkers struggled to find fancier ways to prepare juice, water or tea.

Being a non-coffee drinker in adulthood is virtually unheard of – like a dirty little caffeine free secret.  It’s no surprise that when “the other side” discovers a non-coffee drinker, it can provoke a few different reactions:

1) Disbelief: Stunned, they look at you and ask “Why?” before they throw this mind-bending question at you: “Have you really tried coffee though? Like, really tried it?”  You can only assume that there is some bizarre, secret way to try coffee other than drinking it.

2) Suspicion: Tentatively, they take a sip and raise an eyebrow: “Oh, so you’re against coffee.” It’s not so much a question as it was a statement. Panic ensues: “Do you, like, not believe in it? Who are you? Who sent you? WHO DO YOU WORK FOR!?”

3) Coercion: Wild eyed and psyched at the thought of converting you, they start pouring you a cup: “Don’t like the taste eh? Well how about I pour  a whole bunch of sugar in it!” “You like hot chocolate right? Then you’d definitely like a mocha, just start with that!” “Here, just have a sip of mine., it’s not strong. Just one sip, come on! Grow up!!”

4) Forlorn Reminiscing: Shakily they look on and whisper: “I used to be like you once [*eye twitch*]”

As fascinating as these reactions are, I now feel less inclined to defend myself and my fellow coffee-less people (i.e.: “We are awake! We are social! We are human beings!”) and more inclined to question what the dealio is – why is coffee drinking such a thing? Because the pressure is not limited to non-drinkers, those who actually drink the stuff aren’t safe either. Once you subscribe to the idea, there are a million follow-up questions: what brand do you drink? How do you like your coffee? How many times a day do you drink coffee?  Do you think I should name my kid Coffee and pronounce it Coff-ay? How much money do you spend on coffee? What do you think is the best coffee? Do you enjoy coffee art? Where do the beans come from? What size do you get? Does your barista have a neck tattoo?

Then of course everyone is so tired from talking about coffee that they have to brew a fresh pot just to continue on.

To me, it sounds like we are really just trying to negotiate our relationship with coffee – what does it mean to be a drinker or a non-drinker? What does the choice say about us? And that’s okay – because it’s important to question anything that has become a norm of adulthood, of work life, and of living. But whether you drink coffee ten times a day, or once a week, or not at all, or whether you drink the expensive stuff, the cheap stuff or refrain from it altogether – it’s your call. Lord knows we all cannot afford premium coffee, but we can afford to judge each other a little less.

So for now, I’m saying no to coffee, and its not even because I don’t like the taste, or fear the addiction, or am part of an elite crime-fighting team (Spice Force Five 2.0) that doesn’t need coffee to function. It’s because at this point, it’s more of a social experiment than anything. How much longer will I last before Starbucks and the rest of the coffee world “get me”? How much longer can I stay awake? Will I convert to the other side tomorrow, and this article will be all that’s left of my former decaffeinated self? The future is uncertain, but today I can confidently say no – no thank you Starbucks, I would not like a sip of your gateway coffee. However, I’m still happy to figuratively “grab a coffee” with any and all coffee drinkers – just make mine a False Bravado.

Feature image via Shutterstock. Additional image via.

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Sure, most of us can pick up these tasty treats year round – and for that we are eternally grateful – but all of this Easter spirit makes us 100% more likely to inhale these little eggs at an alarming rate. Mini Egg binges can lead to sugar highs, sugar lows, chocolate-induced comas (more commonly known as cocoamas), melted chocolate in pockets, emptied bank accounts, lucid dreams, jaw pain, life reevaluation, and perhaps most unfairly, a hatred for real eggs. But no matter how you crack it, the fact is we are all going to indulge at an alarming rate, so here are some tips to avoid reaching critical level.

• Stagger your binges with orange juice. The citrus will make the Mini Eggs taste disgusting and will buy you some time. Want to amp up the resistance level? Go for a brushed teeth + orange juice + Mini Eggs combination. Truly haunting.

• Eat only certain colors at a time. It’s like a fun, torturous game! Will it be pink, yellow, white or blue? You’ll get your brain working and give your stomach a bit of recovery time before hitting it with more color-coded deliciousness.

Best and worst game ever

• Get inspired by B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning method and have someone violently whip Mini Eggs at you. Tell them not to hold back, and to aim for the sweet spots: gut, ribs, jugular. This will create a negative association with Mini Eggs and give you a chance at a normal life, or at the very least, a normal hour before you forgive the Mini Eggs by stuffing them in your mouth. Yay science!

• Go for a run…to the store for more Mini Eggs. We all know that once you finish the 5 pound bag, it’s time for lunch, so you might as well break up your Mini Egg meals with some exercise. *Bonus: This is the fastest you will ever run – a personal best, no doubt! It’s all about goal-setting.

Must…get…Mini…Eggs!

• Pass your bag(s) of Mini Eggs onto a loved one and have them set up an Easter egg hunt for you. And I don’t just mean once, I mean whenever you want to eat the Mini Eggs – even if it’s well past Easter. This will not only test your body and mind, but it will also test your relationships. Hey, if your so called boyfriend or girlfriend isn’t willing to set up a daily Easter egg hunt for you, maybe they’re not ready for the realities of a serious relationship. Deal breaker!

• Stay focused and do not research ways to expand your Mini Eggs intake. So whatever you do, do not Google Mini Eggs recipes. Don’t look at how to make adorable nest cupcakes, or gooey, crunchy brownies, or sweet blondies, macaroons, cakes, cookies, rice crispy squares or snack mixes. There’s probably even a recipe out there for a Mini Egg milkshake, but don’t go looking for it.

Just say no.

• Every third purchase, mix it up and go for the Micro Mini Eggs. This actually probably won’t help at all, but it’s adorable! *Bonus: You can pretend to be a giant.

• Take a moment to step out of the wonderful amazing dream world that comes to be when you eat Mini Eggs by reconnecting with real eggs. Go to the fridge and take one out of the carton. Hold it, smell it, feel its stupid, boring, non-sugary shell. This is real life. It’s full of weird goop. And you need to face it…sometimes.

“I’m never going to the fridge again.”

• Find a vegan. They stay away from milk chocolate AND eggs, so get ready for a lecture that’s sure to keep you occupied, because there’s nothing cute about your Mini Eggs addiction or your ignorance to animal welfare.

• Spend time with your peeps. No, I don’t mean your human friends, I mean your better, little sugary marshmallow friends: Marshmallow Peeps. I know it’s hard to believe, but Mini Eggs are not the only treats that make their glorious appearance around Easter time, so remember to expand your Easter tasting pallet and pick up a Peep, a cream egg, a chocolate bunny and even those little foil covered eggs. After all, Easter is about family, and sugar is your family now.

Happy Easter!

Featured image via, Mini Eggs via, Dogs via, Cookies via, Disappointment via

The post Easter Talk: Curbing Your Mini Eggs Addiction appeared first on HelloGiggles.

A boomerang kid is a young adult who has moved back in with their parents, hence “boomeranging” back to where they started. Boomerang kids are part of the broader boomerang generation, consisting of hoards of young, educated people unable to secure a well-paying job. They are victims of the economy, dupes of the education system, broke. The boomerang kid has failed to launch, is a dependent, is the baby bird back in the nest. The boomerang kid is a freeloader, a slacker, a parental parasite – the boomerang kid is YOU.

Wow, that was way harsh, wasn’t it? The term “boomerang kid” is a real bummer.

Let’s consider the meaning. A boomerang, with its sharp lines and angular shape, is so hard to master. Usually, you just end up running after it in an exhausting game of solo fetch. If you ever do figure out how to throw it just right, you feel overjoyed. The boomerang is coming back to you, and years and years of park visits and crippling elbow pain have finally paid off. Horrifyingly, this is also the moment when you realize that you have no idea how to catch the boomerang, a fact made clear as it smacks you across the face.

This isn’t you! You are not a boomerang, violently returning to your parents after years and years of their efforts to launch you off into the sunset. You are not an unforgiving smack in the face!

You are a circular shape of endless possibilities. You are a well-rounded and graceful. You spin into rather than out of control. With your skills, your talent, and your drive, all you need is that propelling force of direction and a little support from the air lift so that you may gracefully soar through the sky – flying to meet your potential, gliding flawlessly until lovingly caught by the next stage of your life. Plus, dogs love you. You’re not a boomerang, you’re a Frisbee!

See, you have not viciously boomeranged back home, you are just a nimble Frisbee preparing for takeoff. You’re not coping, you’re prepping! And with preparation comes making the most of your leisure time. Consider trying the following:

1) Revisiting your Childhood: If your parents haven’t already turned your old room into an office/gym/mediation center, start digging. Who knows what childhood treasures you might find! Trolls, pogs, legos, pre-teen love letters, Bop It, and perhaps best of all: well-hidden Easter eggs. Unemployment has never tasted so good!

2) Getting Creative: Make the things you pinned on Pinterest, because now you finally have the time to find out how incredibly time consuming these crafts are. So go ahead, make those painted mason jar vases, work on that distressed shutter picture display! Your parents might think you’re wasting your time, but they’ll change their tune when you present them with their new wind chime…made of spoons!

3) Inventing Something: You can continue searching the job boards, or you can create your own opportunity. If you work towards building a simple, yet revolutionary invention that requires both manual and creative labor, you’ve not only made yourself CEO of your own company, but you’ve created jobs for all of your fellow Frisbee kids! Economic and generational crisis solved.

Do not let the term “boomerang” describe your life and get you down, instead let the Frisbee and all it stands for lift you up! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to working on my invention. See you at the water cooler!

Featured image via Shutterstock

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In such a space, with its narrow aisles, giant fruit stands and cookie sales, people are going to need to get past each other. Typically, when a person is trying to get past another without violently shoving them, threatening them or yelling at them, they tend to resort to one of two polite sayings: “Sorry” or “Excuse Me.”

But there appears to be the growing and popular third option: making sounds. As one person begins to squeeze past another, they may squeal an: “Oooop!”, “Boooop!”, “Merrrrp!”, “Eeeeekkk!” “Mmmmmm!”, “Ahhhhhhhh!” and most puzzlingly “Oops!”

This may have happened to you, or someone you love. You may have even done this yourself. No matter, it leaves us all asking the same question: Why? (Especially “Oops” – that is just downright confusing! How dare you!)

After extensive field research, the use of these dolphin-like sounds does not appear to be rooted in rudeness. Here are two theories:

1) Fear of Misusing “Sorry”: Canadians in particular are notorious for misusing “sorry” as they are constantly using it in place of “Excuse Me” or “Hey Buddy, watch where you’re going.” You may have even found yourself saying “Sorry” to a fellow shopper, even though they are the ones who heartlessly pushed you into the pineapples. And those things will draw blood!

You see, politeness can hurt if we misuse it, so maybe we should begin to realize our abuse of “sorry” and try to avoid using it if out of context. Because let’s be honest, we’re not usually “sorry” for having to get by someone. They’re in the way! Mindlessly running their shopping carts into produce displays because they haven’t learned how to walk and text.

2) The Effects of Sarcasm & Sass: Politeness, much like anything, can be butchered by sarcasm, eye rolls and air quotes. A “sorry” for example, can be insulting based on the delivery and become a sarcastic apology. An anti-apology. A sarpology.

E.g: “Sawwwwreeeeeeeeuuhhhh” or “I’m sorry that people are so jealous of me…but I can’t help it that I’m popular.”

While “sorry” can be equated with inauthenticity, when used correctly it conveys a proper apology. “Excuse me”, on the other hand, for some reason appears to be more tightly linked with sass, provocation and impatience.

E.g: “Excuse me [young man/lady, boyfriend/girlfriend, neighborhood nemesis], what did you just say to me?! Oh you’ve done it now!”

In conclusion, it seems that some of us are paranoid of using “sorry” out of context and afraid of using “excuse Me” because it can be interpreted as harsh and impolite. Our polite saying is now impolite and, without a suitable replacement, we crumble into mumbling noisemakers.

This is inexcusable!

We need to either reclaim the politeness of “excuse me,” stop tiptoeing around “sorry”, or come up with a brand new expression to be used when we need to get past someone. You know, like how Jerry began to replace “God Bless You” with “You are so good looking.”

In the same vein, I propose a gentler way to say “excuse me”, here it is: “Excuse me, I need to get to the cookies.” You don’t even need to be in the grocery store for this to make sense, it works in any and all contexts. Cookies are important, yet non-threatening. People will totally understand.

Featured image via Shutterstock

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You’ve been on the youngest side of the generational gap for years. You’ve explained to your grandparents the wonders of e-mail, you’ve set up the DVD player for your mom, you’ve fought with your dad about how school has changed since his day and then dramatically run up to your room to crank up the classic “Parents Just Don’t Understand”. Because they didn’t – they were from a different generation, and you were separated by a colossal gap of confusion, with no bridge in sight.

As part of the younger generation, you seamlessly adapted to the world’s changes. You flawlessly transitioned from Walkmans to CD players to iPods. You graduated from MSN Messenger to MySpace to Facebook and to Twitter. You traded America’s Funniest Home Videos for YouTube. That’s a lot of change to handle in a short amount of time – heck, even a planet disappeared – but there’s nothing your young and hip generation couldn’t handle. To the older generation, “hashtag” is simply the pound sign, the DVDs need to be rewound and abbreviated messaging lingo is an encrypted secret language understood only by us. LOL!

You’ve had everything under control for years, ’90s kid, but things have started to change, haven’t they? You come across a nostalgic list on the Internet. It might be “121 Things a True ’90s Kid Knows” or “You’re a ’90s Kid If…” or perhaps most cryptically, “Things ’90s Kids Will Have to Explain to their Kids.” These lists make you feel like you are part of an elite group of awesomeness, but they also force you to realize how much time has passed. “Wait,” you wonder, “Am I old enough for this nostalgia?”

And then BAM! Your younger sibling or that kid you babysit throws new lingo at you. Desperately, you pretend to understand what they are talking about as they go on and on about the annoying “LGs” and “Bronies” in their class. Finally, you surrender and ask what the abbreviation stands for. They look at you with a mix of disbelief, disgust and sadness. And then they tweet your pathetic lack of know-all to their 20,000 followers and ruin your life.

And that’s it.

That final abbreviated blow was all it took to catapult you hundreds of miles away from the cool, young generation club you thought you were still a part of. The gravel has quickly eroded behind you, plummeting into bridge-less waters, creating a new gap. You suddenly realize that the young person you were interacting with is the youth to your “adult,” and they are now the one’s playing “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” Except it’s not “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” it’s some other song by some band you don’t know because music these days is just garbage. And it’s too loud!

How could this happen to you? How could you be treated like you’re old? The ’90s were not that long ago, you can’t be out of touch, you’re not even a parent, and that kid with the new lingo is only six years younger than you! You can’t be old!

Breath. This is your first experience on the older side of a generation gap. It can be scary, here’s how to deal:

1) Retaliation: Don’t let this child of the millennial belittle you. You’re from the ’90s. You got moves they’ve never seen. You had to actually read books and talk to people in real life as a kid. So when they are acronyming you, bust out your ’90s flavor and respond with “As if!” or “Booyah!” or “Not!” or “Psych!” and wait for their look of confusion. Respond with, “Oh, you don’t know what that means? Sorry kid, I gotta go make a mix tape and feed my Nano, so talk to the hand and maybe I’ll teach you how to devil stick one day, if you’re lucky”. And then grab your Razor scooter a zip on outta there.

2) Acceptance: You’re old (er). It’s okay. Lucky for you, vintage is in. People are playing records and taking Polaroids again, ’90s fashions are already creeping back into the mainstream: scrunchies, overalls, leggings. Being old is cool – in fact, you’re not old, you’re vintage!

3) Reality Check: Of course, fellow ’90s kids, you’re not really old. This is just the first time in your life where you are encountering younger people who you can no longer relate to. It can seem scary at first, feeling “old” and out of touch, but all it really means is that your own generation has taken on a nice, rounded shape. As a 90s kid, you have a distinct identity, a reference point, memories and peers that make your experience in the world unlike any other. Generational distinctions are a beautiful thing.

So humour the youngins, ask them to help you update your iPod, navigate Instagram and to explain who Niall Horan is. They will seem annoyed, but they secretly love it.

Featured image via.

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