Out of the special = Falling out of favor

This is tough for me. My favorite coffeehouse in Little 5 Points has been Aurora coffee ever since I set foot in the ATL. It's got the flyers for all the indie rock shows coming to town, hipster art on the walls, free wifi, a "customer loyalty" program, pretty damn good coffee, and (perhaps most importantly) it's not a Starbucks. It has all the bells and whistles of a tip-top coffee shop, but I still find myself having sort of a beef with the joint.

That's right - I have a beef with Aurora coffee.

I'm like a lot of people out there: I need coffee. I like coffee and oftentimes when I'm enjoying a late morning stroll through the neighborhood with my "special someone" I will duck into a coffee shop and fork over a five-spot for two 16 oz (don't even call it a Venti) cups of this dark, fragrant nectar for us to sugar up and enjoy. It's a simple pleasure that wakes up our senses and brings us together.

Aurora features a house blend, a daily special from some exotic tropical/war-torn region of the globe, and an increasingly annoying habit of being out of the daily special.

My "special someone" and I are so accustomed to the disappointment of having to drink the chopped liver-esque house blend instead of the daily special that we've taken to rolling our eyes at the small chalkboard at the register. Today was more of the same. The special was once again from some tropical/war-torn geographical region, and when I asked for two 16 oz cups of this dark, fragrant nectar we were informed that one of us was going to have to drink the chopped liver-esque house blend because "there's only enough of the special for one cup".

Really? We weren't surprised.

My "special someone" has been onto the antics of Aurora's hipster Baristas for quite some time. I've defended them, always urging her to "give the benefit of the doubt" or some such cliche, but with today's unfortunate java debacle she has finally won me over, hence my current beef with Aurora.

Hipster Barista, will you answer me this: is it really that hard to maintain two kinds of coffee for your paying public? Is the stress of your Urban Outfitters lifestyle too much that you are fraught with ineptitude when it comes to monitoring the levels of preexisting coffee in your urns? Are those tight hipster jeans such a distraction that you cannot operate the grinder machine for sufficiaent lengths of time to maintain a suitable supply of the daily special concurrently with the house blend?

I'm not going to let myself be a victim of your chopped liver-esque house blend again when it is special coffees from tropical/war-torn regions I crave - I'm taking my happy ass (and the happy ass of my "special someone") somewhere else next time.

As soon as I earn enough stamps for my free cup of whatever you have left.