I was beginning to become more and more agitated with the lack of decent iced tea here. Oh, sure, they call it iced tea, but they don’t understand the fundamentals:

1) Refills are always free. I didn’t order an “iced tea,” as if it was a single object; I ordered a liquid subscription.

2) It should be brewed fresh all day, so it doesn’t get that weird tea funk. (Funk is to tea as skunk is to beer. It can still be drunk, but it gives cause for pause.) And no, I don’t want a bottle of Lipton from the cold case, you philistine.

3) The tea should be served in a glass the diameter of my neck, not my wrist.

I have found two things that partially make up for this tragic lack of tea understanding:

Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry in liter bottles and Yoo-Hoo.

Switching gears, a thought about the heat wave in Europe. Now, I don’t mean to make light of the tragic heat-related deaths (nearly 3,000) in France, which is truly awful. However…

White sauce on meat: yes

Air conditioning: no

Clearly, the French are the superior culture.