Last modified: Friday, March 28, 2008 1:04 AM EDT Life 101: Move over, Dunkie's BY LAUREN CARTER/FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE I've been loyal to Dunkin Donuts for a long time. In high school I discovered French vanilla iced coffee and I've been hooked ever since. Now I'm the epitome of a regular customer and I'll admit, sometimes I wish there was some kind of reward for this: such as a year-end rebate for customers who spend more than $500 annually, which I definitely qualify for. But now a strange thing is happening: I've started going to Starbucks. Not necessarily instead of going to Dunkin Donuts, but in addition to it. Previously, I was never a Starbucks fan. I felt that the menu of drinks was too complicated to understand and I was content with my simple, straightforward Dunkin Donuts where all of the words made sense. My mother, a coffee connoisseur who orders her beans straight from Hawaii, swears by Starbucks and looks down on Dunkin Donuts like a lesser entity. Whatever. Mothers and daughters are supposed to disagree on some things. Now, however, I've discovered something called a Caffe Mocha. This is basically a glorified hot chocolate that costs upwards of $3 for a small (excuse me, tall), but somehow keeps me coming back. I consider a trip to Starbucks a treat and have begun learning the new language during my increasingly frequent expeditions. For example, because I'm (generally) eating healthier, I've decided to tone down my order after seeing the calorie and fat content of a regular mocha with whipped cream. Now I order a tall decaf nonfat one-pump mocha. Have no idea what that means? Me neither. All I know is that the final product has nonfat milk, only one shot of chocolate (rather than three) and will leave me energized but not frazzled. What it also means is that I'm paying way too much money for a cup of coffee. But hey, no one said learning new things was easy.