I was driving through McLean last night and needed to stop to pick up some groceries. By the way, McLean is in Virginia, for those of you who don’t like to cross water ^[1].

I went into the Giant supermarket on Old Dominion Blvd. and was immediately smacked in the face by the very pungent smell of what I at first thought was cat pee. I quickly moved away, into the produce section, which had the wonderful smell of fruits grown to be as large and/or colorful as possible ^[2]. What a relief.

As soon as I edged out of the produce area I was again hit by the wall of urine odor. That’s when I noticed that the smell and concentration of odor was directly related to the proximity to the Starbucks kiosk.

Was it something in their coffee or simply an ammonia-based cleaning agent? Was it, in fact, cat pee? I honestly did not care. If I had not been turned off simply by their disgusting, bitter coffee, I now have a new reason to not go there. Thank goodness for Murky Coffee and its wonderful bounty of delicious brew.