A man gets annoyed that his date is taking all the best nachos in the basket--but instead of gently nudging her to save a few for him, he convinces a reluctant waiter to tell her it's against restaurant policy. A party-goer tasked with telling his friend to cut him off if he starts talking about his kids takes the assignment to heart, causing major distractions every time he overhears his friend starting into an anecdote about the kids, including a few with a dog that has almost certainly been traumatized ever since. A contestant on a "Bachelorette"-style reality show is voted off because it's become clear he's not really interested in finding love, but in using the mansion's zip line every episode. These are just a few of the flamboyantly ridiculous situations that can be seen in the Netflix-originated show "I Think You Should Leave," spearheaded by the bizarre and brilliant Tim Robinson. The theme of the series is seeing how a fairly typical situation can be taken to the absolute furthest extreme. Any mild irritation can become rage, any slight penchant for drama can become death-defying, any routine response can go on to spurt paragraphs of nonsense. The titular statement is meant for the instigators of these events. Obviously, the most prominent reason to watch this show is because it is wildly entertaining to our basest instincts. The comedy is slapstick on steroids, the dialogue infectiously quotable. (While attending a music festival, I recently noticed a shirt that was entirely made up of the comically large meal order from the skit "Pay It Forward" in the episode "Cut To: We're Chatting About This at Your Bachelor Party." I won't take up more of this parenthetical with a synopsis, just know that this skit is particularly worth a watch.)  But on a more subtle level, this is observational comedy taken to the furthest possible edge. That form of comedy on its surface is not for everyone, but for me, it has been both massively enjoyable and an utter godsend. I'm autistic, and as a result, I spent a lot of my life feeling like an alien species among my own kind. Like many autistic kids, I was precocious, and thanks to my mom's omnipresent TV choices I developed an early attachment to "Seinfeld," a masterwork of the genre. Laughs were there, but equalling the number of laughs was the number of times I'd think "Yeah...why DO people do that?" "I Think You Should Leave" causes the same type of thinking, although with a lot more mania. Humans can be strange, ritualistic creatures--it's healthy to lampoon internally and have a sense of humor about ourselves...and appreciate zip lines a little more.

My dad, alongside being an Army veteran and overall Renaissance man, has been a coffee aficionado since I was much too small to drink it. There was a French press in the family kitchen where many otherwise placed a coffee maker. At some point we ended up with a bean grinder alongside it. I knew what a dark roast was before I knew about decaf. As a teenager starting to venture out of the house, I had the phrase "cream, lots of sugar" as perfectly rehearsed as Picard's request for Earl Grey. Once I was on my own, I still met with him often. To this day, one request from him remains consistent: "Bring coffee." The Starbucks interior is thus very familiar to me. That said, a nine-year-old should not be caffeinated. I wasn't ready for tea, and forget that decaf we were just talking about. There were two hot drinks I'd see in a separate menu section very frequently: hot chocolate and Caramel Apple Spice. Caramel Apple Spice is an utterly blissful blend of apple cider and sweet-and-salty caramel topped with a cloud of whipped cream, itself coming with caramel syrup on top. Upon the first taste of my first cup, I loved the warmth and the unique sweetness, and from then on I had my first "usual." I am now thirty. A lot happens between nine and thirty, and I'd say more than average happened to me. At twelve I left public school due to relentless bullying and needs that couldn't be covered, and by thirteen I was starting college, slowly at first. Caramel Apple Spice remained the drink of choice--I was still a kid, after all. At sixteen, the hope of an early degree got derailed--abuse from my biological patriarch came to a head, and a case ended up in court while I ended up in inpatient psychiatric care; I was in and out of that care until I was eighteen. After a shaky recovery period, I met my future husband when I was twenty-three, and later that same year, embattled but content, I held my honors-accompanied Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies onstage. By then, coffee had become as close a pal to me as it is to my dad. Still "cream, lots of sugar" for me. From there I started a career in libraries, got my Master of Science in Library and Information Science at twenty-six, and remained an essential worker going out of the house during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a lot to manage. "Cream, lots of sugar." Now adult life has come in, full of ups and downs. I'm happily married, full-time in the library field, and overall much happier than I used to be. But along the way, I remained in a tug-of-war with mental health, my mother died in her fifties, and my family learned that Veterans Affairs revoked their promise to grant us the amount of the student loans I accumulated getting my degrees. It's the nature of life to make you expect the unexpected. My favorite drinks have changed right along with my life. Now they run the gamut from cappuccino to canned cold brew to, yes, "Earl Grey, hot." But every so often, you just want an old, reliable comfort. Caramel Apple Spice remains that drink for me. It won't supply a busy day's fuel. It doesn't come with the adventure of prying open a new variety box. But in a beautifully chaotic life, it is vital to recall simpler times on occasion. Let us raise a polyethylene cup to the childhood cheer of Caramel Apple Spice!