Dairy, Dunkin’, and Deception: the ill-fated story of me and my coffee order
I’m just gonna start out by saying this story is kind of disgusting. I’m sorry, but I’m also not.
If you know me in virtually any sense, you probably know that my stomach and I do not get along. This isn’t really a secret, as I can turn essentially any conversation, in any company, into one about poop. A family dinner where we’re meeting my cousin’s boyfriend for the first time? Perfect chance to let out a room-shattering burp, beautifully opening up a conversation about my gas-passing habits. A friend is making a pot of quinoa for lunch? That reminds me of the time I had too much quinoa salad and couldn’t be further than ten feet from a toilet. My stomach issues aren’t exactly the main point of this post, though. I really wanted to tell an unfortunate story that just so happens to be kind of related to my stomach problems. So this riveting setup was worth it. Sort of.
Back in January, after my gastroenterologist performed every semi-questionable exam in the book to try to figure out what was wrong with my stomach/intestines/bowels, he told me it’d be in my best interest to stay away from dairy. Now, I’d dabbled in veganism in the past, but it never lasted, usually succumbing to the likes of my mom’s bolognese or even a simple piece of pizza.
If you’ve never seen me talk with my hands in real-time, you might not know that I’m Italian. Like, straight-outta-The-Sopranos-gabagool-I’m-walkin-here Italian. So Italian that when my parents moved into my neighborhood, rumors spread that my dad was in the mob. SO Italian that my grandpa cried when my parents named me Cassidy because “How dare you give my only fully Italian granddaughter an Irish name?” Dairy runs in our veins. Not being able to digest dairy in any form is an automatic sign of weakness and inferiority.
When I got home from my appointment, I told my mom the doomed news. Without skipping a beat she said to me “I’m halfway through making the chicken parm for tonight, so you’ll have to start tomorrow.” Unable to say no to homemade chicken parm (it really is my weakness), I spent that night and the following morning in agonizing pain to appease my mom’s dinner plans. The week following was a relentless power struggle between my dietary needs and my mom’s inability to imagine a life without dairy. She would proudly suggest meals that she thought were fair game, not realizing that cheese, milk, etc., was the main ingredient. Some of my favorite suggestions included: quesadillas, alfredo sauce, and, unbelievably, a sausage egg and cheese.
Once my mom finally realized what was off-limits, and also realized how upset I was that I was basically told that I indefinitely couldn’t have so many of my favorite foods, she tried to make me feel better by thinking of the things that I loved so much that were naturally dairy-free. One of those things was my Medium Cold Brew With Almond Milk And Caramel from Dunkin’. Of Course! How could I have forgotten! The stomach gods could take the basis of my heritage from me, but they couldn’t get at my coffee order! To celebrate, the next six days at home were spent making giddy trips to the Dunkin’ drive-through and guzzling down my coffee before I could get home. Even when I got back to school, Dunkin’ was my pick-me-up, my special excursion to make myself smile on especially bad days. My Dunkin’ was the stepping-off point for my eagerness to become fully dairy-free.
After a while, I got used to my no-milk lifestyle. While a part of me still died every time I was in the presence of burrata (which was more often than you’d think), I had almost fully kicked my need for cheese.
At the end of February, I was flying home to surprise my mom for her birthday. It was 7 AM at LAX. I was exhausted and constipated. But I knew a Dunkin’ fix was exactly what my mind and my bowels needed. As I was waiting to order, the girl in front of me recited my same Medium Cold Brew With Almond Milk And Caramel. That immediately piqued my interest, and I caught myself unintentionally sizing said girl up to see what kind of crowd My Coffee Order brings out. I wish I wasn’t so nosy, because as I looked up I heard the cashier say:
“The caramel has dairy, is that okay?”
The caramel. Has. Dairy.
It was like my world started turning in reverse. H O W could the caramel have dairy??? Why would the flavoring need any milk??? It was just a flavor syrup!! Right?
RIGHT?
Wrong.
Not knowing what to do, I calmly walked off the line I had just spent 20 minutes waiting on. I took to the internet and found that yes, all of the Dunkin’ flavor swirls (except Mocha, don’t ask) include sweetened condensed milk.
Sweetened condensed milk! Arguably the worst kind of milk I could have! Essentially just a blob of 100% dairy being thrown into the bottom of my cup!
No wonder it tasted so good.
I cannot explain the betrayal I felt. My Medium Cold Brew With Almond Milk And Caramel and I had been through so much together. I trusted her. And what made it worse was that I STILL craved it! Dairy and all!
My Medium Cold Brew With Almond Milk And Caramel had taken my bowels as well as my dignity. I’d spent the past almost two months thinking I was a dairy-free icon when I was really just a cow-milk-loving sham.
After a rough few days of loss and confusion at home, combined with the feeling of there being full-sized Bratz dolls lodged in my intestines (euphemism for: I didn’t poop for four days), I was blessed with a gift from the coffee gods. Starbucks decided to launch their brown sugar oat milk shaken espressos that next weekend. And suddenly, I was a coffee chain convert. A new obsession commenced.
(P.S. Don’t hate on me for not knowing there was milk in the Dunkin’ flavor swirls, okay? I milked the ignorance is bliss wave for a very long time (pun intended))
(P.P.S. Expect more poop content. Obviously, I have no shame)
