Today’s Highlight Real is a real travel experience we had driving on the Overseas Highway (Route 1) in the Florida Keys. There are certain words and phrases that become a permanent part of a family vernacular. Phrases that are immediately recognized, and instantly convey the crux of the matter at hand. 

This is the story of Baby’s Coffee.

If you’ve ever driven to/from Key West in Florida, you know there’s only one way in and one way out – the Overseas Highway, aka Route 1. And there are stretches (big stretches) of that highway where there aren’t exactly an abundance of places to stop if you need to use the bathroom.

So, we’re driving along said highway. My son (then 15), announces he needs to use the bathroom. So we ask where he’s at on the urgency scale: do you need a bathroom NOW or in 20 minutes? If you’re a parent, you know this truth: the further you are away from a bathroom, the more urgently your kid needs to poop.

The boy: I can probably wait.

A few minutes go by.

The boy: Are we close to a stop?

The boy is starting to look unwell.

A few more minutes pass.

The boy: I’ve gotta go. NOW.

The boy is now writhing in his seat.

Oh shit.

There is nowhere to stop on this bridge. Nowhere. This bridge just keeps going and going. Is there some type of offramp on the next little island?  Nope, just more and more bridge.

Things are getting desperate. We were about to pull over ON the bridge. Wait. Is that a mirage?

It’s a small coffee shop called Baby’s Coffee. Oh God, please have a bathroom. People who drink coffee need to pee, right? Surely they have a bathroom.

We pull up to the front door like a getaway car in a bank robbery, and the boy runs inside with that look on his face.

The dam is giving way. The defenses are collapsing.

We trail the boy inside, and one of us (I don’t remember who) shouts, “Bathroom!?!?” The barista seems to recognize the impending disaster (I don’t think this was Baby’s Coffee’s first rodeo) and points toward a single door. The boy does not break stride, and everyone in the place parts like the Red Sea.

I hesitate to think what would have happened had that bathroom been occupied. We would have been dealing with an entirely different set of problems.

We preemptively buy 4 large coffees to cover the cost of whatever was happening in that bathroom.

Baby’s Coffee is now the DEFCON 1 of our family bathroom urgency scale. Whenever someone has to go, the first question asked is, “Is it a Baby’s Coffee, or can you wait?” Because if you invoke Baby’s Coffee, we all know what that means.

You are literally about to lose your shit.

Cheers!

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P.S. Yes, frequent contributor, aka I. Shetzmepanz, I opened the door pretty wide for you. 😂