Sticking It To The Man

Today Starbucks offers free coffee from 10am-noon at their various 7500 locations across the US. I am not really one to ever go to this establishment unless I have a voucher or coupon that gets me something that is nearly free. I decided today though to venture out the 2 block walk in order to get my free heart attack. I don't know what kind of blend it is, but what I do know is that in order for my taste buds to be able to tolerate it I had to dump out 1/3 of the coffee and replace it with water, and even then it is still pretty strong. I think I feel more hair growing on my chest and in my mouth.

I am always fascinated by watching people. I was curious as to what kind of hobbits would be found waiting it out in line there this morning. I wasn't let down.

In front of me was a very fascinating threesome of deaf folks. It didn't bother me in the least because I grew up being exposed to people who were hearing impaired. I even took some sign language courses with my mom when I was a kid. I don't really remember much of any of it any more but I can catch some things here and there. I just stood there thinking about what all difficulties that they run into on a daily basis. Not being able to hear would be very difficult. Especially when there was a lady standing behind them wanting to get past them who kept saying "excuse me" and they didn't have a clue. I even started to reach out and tap the deaf lady, but by then one of the guys she was with saw what was happening.

The group behind me seemed like a bunch of kids who thought that St. Patty's day had come early. I know that it might just be me and the fact that I seem so far removed from the rest of the world, but these kids that I see out and about these days just seem to be getting younger and younger. I am guessing that these kids were probably still in High School...which makes me even sicker because I thought that one of them was pretty good looking in a Kiera Knightly sort of way. Anyhooo- They were all wearing green things; and it seemed like it was on purpose. One of them even kept saying [to who I have no idea] "kiss me I'm Irish." I think that was the dude, but he was the nuttiest looking of them all.

We got inside and I felt like I must be in yuppie heaven. The inside had a very modern feel with soothing colours and calming, yet hip music playing. I have no idea who it was though. Some people were sitting at tables as though they were regulars, which is kind of funny because there are only a handful of tables in there anyways. But standing in line and waiting, slowly inching forward I made my way past various items that were on display and ultimately for sale. I saw a 10 cup coffee maker that looked like it was made out of stainless steel. I thought it looked kind of cool until I saw the $119.00 price tag on it. No thanks. I probably don't make coffee enough to justify anything like that. In fact, I have a hard enough time spending $30 for one. It must be my Scotch heritage.

So I made my way up to the counter and told the lady that I'd take just a regular Breakfast Blend and she reached back and grabbed a cup and put a lid on it and then sounded like she said something about how I was lucky enough to get something Columbian something or other. I don't know.

Then I saw one of the deaf guys who was ahead of me at the little creamer table that they had. The poor guy was trying to get the lid off of his cup and ended up spilling the whole thing all over the table and on to the floor. I reached for a paw full of napkins and handed them to him and he mouthed "thank you" to me as one of the younger Brown brothers [who I know that works there] popped out to clean up the mess and get him a replacement.

After I had my cut I decided that it was time to get out of Dodge. I headed back to the office, the whole 2 block walk; but the blocks betwixt the caffine cave and my building are fairly big blocks. It was still chilly with a cutting cold breeze that made me remember that my stocking cap was still in my car on the passenger seat. No big deal though because I was getting closer with each step.

Part of the time I kept thinking back to what I had read about this ordeal from this morning's small descriptive article from the Chicago Tribune. They said that this offering of Starbucks to the community comes only a week after McDonalds started offering "high end" coffee. Somehow that just seems really suspicious to me, not in a conspiracy theory sort of way, but from a cost perspective. The reality of that would mean that Mickey D's coffee could now potentially go from being $.75 a cup to $1.75. I suppose some of the younger yuppies might go for that but certainly not the old timers. Not to mention the sheer irony alone of the golden arches being even close to competion with the other bean giants of the world. But I digress...

I got back to the office, realizing as I was walking back to my desk, the countless times that I have razzed my co-workers about going to waste their money at the local dark watering hole. It dawned on me that my now holding a cup that bore their emblem would normally put me dangerously close to being guilty of what I often accused them of, but not today. Today I'm in the clear...but only because this one was on the house.