Whip it, please. And whip it well.

The most popular thing we have at Starbucks isn't a drink. It isn't a pastry, either. And it's free.

Our most popular item is whipped cream, and omg. Whipped cream. About 95% of the beverages we make have some whip-specific detail in the custom box. Whipped cream leads to some of the most baffling and frustrating scenarios we have at Starbucks.

The devil.

I guess I should start with a basic run down of our whipped cream. We have the carbon dioxide whippers and we "make" it with our vanilla syrup and 16 oz of heavy whip. It really is delicious, like creamy manna from the heavens, but the amount of whipped cream that goes on a grande hot beverage adds up to 120 calories and 10 g of fat. One hundred and twenty calories for what essentially adds up to less than a condiment, one that melts almost immediately into the beverages and, with how much sugar is already in most of our drinks (particularly those that get whip), is never tasted.

And yet, when a middle aged woman on a diet purchases a drink from Starbucks, the whipped cream is where she will, invariably, crack. And if she's feeling particularly guilty about it, blush, giggle, and assure us that she knows it's silly, but she does love whipped cream so, and really, it does make the drink. To which, in response, I will lie.

It is helpful, though, because when I see the add whip line on the cup, I immediately know that the rest of the details don't matter. I don't have skim milk ready? Oh well, it's already with whip, 2% can't hurt. They wanted sugar free? Yeah, can't taste the difference with all that whip on top, can she. If you don't seem to care, why should we?

Alright, alright, I suppose whipped cream on diet drinks is almost understandable. Everyone cheats, after all. Still more inexplicable is the whip on soy drinks, which we make with depressing frequency. I like to imagine that those people go home and put bacon on their veggie burgers.

Worse yet are the subtle annoyances of whipped cream on an iced beverage. I don't mean frappuccinos. Those are pretty much sugar spun lard shakes anyways, adding a dollop of sugary milkfat isn't going to make much of a difference. I mean the drinks with actual ice cubes floating in them. Cold drinks, if I may remind everyone, are drunk from the bottom up when sipped through a straw. Whipped cream, due to its adorable whippy qualities, floats firmly on the top. Ice cubes don't fit through a straw. What I'm trying to get here is that, unless you wait for it to melt or just suck it off the top, you will never, ever get to taste that delicious whipped cream on your iced vanilla latte. It will get stuck in the ice and, once there, it is yours no longer. It is therefore a pointless addition that countless people ask for every day.

Honestly, the most annoying thing about it is the fact that it seems to be such a neccessity. There are people who will riot and send in complaints and bitch and moan if we leave it off. All for something that amounts to little less than a sugary condiment. This, I'm pretty sure, is what's wrong with our country.