No. 40: E-Crush at Hi Hat Coffee

%{[ data-embed-type=”image” data-embed-id=”57150c6089121ca96b96555b” data-embed-element=”aside” ]}%To whet your appetite for The Pitch‘s annual Best of Kansas City issue in October, we’re counting down our favorite Top 50 dishes each weekday until October 7.

So there you are, waiting for the light to change while the Honda’s AC blows a one-person cold front over you. The plan is to stall that first sip until you’re on the highway, but it’s a long light, and the 20-ounce cup gleams with sweat. You relent. Up through the straw comes cold comfort: chocolate, espresso, milk, ice. The light changes. You release the straw. A perfect dewdrop of your Hi Hat E-Crush hangs in the air long enough for you to see it, to know where it will land — on your shirt, just below the collar, a telltale brown smudge to taunt the bottom of your peripheral vision the rest of the day. You punch the accelerator as your anger flares, looking for a target. The poorly engineered straw! Your own eagerness! Gravity! The staining drink!

But to paraphrase Homer Simpson: “Oh, E-Crush, I can’t stay mad at you.”