For the price of a cup of coffee

For the price of a cup of coffee

June 23, 2010, 10:52 am
Filed under: Consumer / Retail, General Peevery | Tags: annoying, bitter coffee, coffee, drive me up the wall, drive thru coffee shop, dunkin donuts, elin nordegren, for the price of a cup of coffee, frappe, grating, have it your way, macchiato, make it your damn self, mcdonalds, nervous breakdown, peeve, pet peeves, sally struthers, san francisco coffee, sarcastic, starbucks, starsucks, vent, wake up wednesday, who carries cash

Wednesday is my favorite day of the week.  Why?  Because it is “Wake Up Wednesday” at Smalls’ daycare.  Which means, there is freshly brewed coffee, (with real creamer!) set out for the parents – FOR FREE.  Isn’t that a nice, lovely gesture?  They even have the insulated cups with the hot bands and the lids.  And, stirrers, which may or may not have been taste-tested and kid-approved.

Now, I can get coffee at my workplace and usually do, but, there is something about having nice, hot coffee in my belly before I hit the elevator and head on up to the office.  I could stop at one of those coffee shops I pass on my commute, but that would mean finding a parking spot, getting out of the car with Smalls, waiting in line listening to Smalls tell me how she “needs” a muffin that is bigger than my head, and making my own coffee.

Yes, you heard right.  Making my own coffee.  See, that is what the world (okay, I’m being melodramatic – the US) has come to.  You pay upwards of $2.00 a cup for plain old coffee and then you get the “privilege” of making it, too.  Now, if you’re lucky, you’re at a Starbucks where they will actually pour the coffee in the cup for you and leave you to do all the fixins.  If you want coffee that’s not as bitter as Elin Nordegren and head over to a San Francisco Coffee, you are on your own. That is, unless you are part of the bourgeoisie that spends upwards of $4.00 a cup for some frappetastic concoction.  No, at San Francisco Coffee, drip-drinkers are like gum on the bottom of the latte-drinkers’ shoes.  They get handed a cup, whipped and sent off to pour their own cup.

http://comedians.jokes.com/cory-kahaney/videos/cory-kahaney---save-the-children

If I lived in suburbia, I could go through a drive-thru coffee shop.  Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds – all make your coffee for you if you get it at the drive-thru.  It’s not really a hard concept.  Delis across New York do this all day long (at half the price, I dare add).  Regular = 2 creams, 1 sugar.  Light & Sweet = 3 creams, 2 sugars.  Dark, No Sugar = 1 cream, no sugar.  This is not rocket science, but apparently it is too hard to master when you have recipes the like of non-fat, triple whip, venti, caramel macchiatos running around in your head.

There was a genius coffee shop on my commute route that set up a coffee stand (not unlike lemonade stands of yesteryear) in an abandoned parking lot.  $2.00 a cup.  Cash.   Well, who the heck carries cash anymore?  I can tell you the day after I remembered to stash $10 in my car console and was driving into work…  they were gone.  Never to appear again.  Seriously?

Remember those commercials where an obese Sally Struthers would hold a starving child and cry, telling us that for the price of a cup of coffee we could feed a village for a week?  Well, for the price of a cup of coffee I can buy myself one of these:

It's instant - no timer necessary. (www.keurigcoffeebrewer.com)

Because if the “Have it Your Way” mentality is going to mean “Make it Your Damn Self” then I might as well do just that.

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