The pumpkin spice latte has had a death grip on the coffee industry since Starbucks stole it from Tori Amos three decades ago. But in the past 10 or so years, the seasonal beverage has been anything but and has hung like a specter over the very un-autumnal months of August and September. You can get a PSL right this very minute if you want.
Over the years we’ve seen a multitude of things getting pumpkin spiced with varying degrees of success. There were some that worked, like these Saucony sneakers. Some that bizarrely worked, like the limited edition 7-Eleven Slurpee, and some that should have never been pumpkin spiced to begin with, like Peeps, the espresso martini, and Spam.
It led us in 2019 to declare that we were past the point of return on the Pumpkin Spicepocalypse. It seemed like the tyranny would never end, but I am happy to now report that the pumpkin spice latte is dead. I don’t mean this is the CNN Business sense, that the PSL is losing popularity in favor of “funkier flavors” like banana, blueberry coffee rose, and marshmallow cold foam (though McDonald’s not bringing back the PSL may be a sign of the times). I mean it very literally. The pumpkin spice latte is dead. It is an actual casket.
As reported by People, Titan Caskets is now selling a pumpkin spice casket. This is 100% real and not a joke. Well, it’s kind of a joke, just one you can spend sixteen hundred American dollars on. According to People, the very orange casket is a “humorous marketing” strategy to “poke fun at the decades-old flavor.” It’s also a completely functioning receptacle for your material matter to return to the nothingness from which is was born.
“PSL season doesn’t have to end when you do,” an Instagram post announcing the new casket. It’s part of Titan’s marketing strategy seeking “to normalize funeral planning and educate consumers about their rights and options.”
I am trying to conceive of the sort of person that would want a pumpkin spice casket. Like, who loves the PSL so much that it is part of their last will and testament? I have thus far come up with only one person for whom this casket is a certainty. And I am that person. Here’s how I see it going down. Some terrible and untimely fate befalls me; I’m guessing Starbucks is behind it but I can’t say for certain. A bureaucratic error places me in my orange deathbed. Only that I wasn’t actually dead and now I’m buried alive in my pumpkin spice grave with my finals days livestreamed to Howard Schultz’s personal iPad that he watches when the Oleato sends him running to the can. If/when this happens, please know that it was not an accident like will be reported and my final words were not “pumpkin spice rules, number one!”
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
