Every been to Starbucks? They’re precious. When I enter, I have the feeling I’m entering the set of “Frasier.” Remember that show? “Café Nervosa” is modeled after Starbucks and it’s the coffee shop in which the pretentious Frasier brothers hung out, ordering “half-caf cappuccino with non-fat foam and a hint of cinnamon.”
We got into the habit of going to Starbucks after church on Sunday. I could not make myself tell the girl behind the counter that I wanted a “Tall” coffee when all I wanted was a small coffee. The official Starbucks size naming scheme is a pretentious use of Italian, with their smallest cup labeled “Tall”, “Grande” being their name for medium sized cups and “Venti” for their large cups; Venti being Italian for 20 which is the size of their largest cup.
So I have always walked up to the counter and ordered a small regular coffee, feeling like a rebel as people ahead and behind me parroted the ridiculous names that Starbucks assigned to its drinks.
If I’m in Italy, I order using Italian terms, but it seemed the height of fakery to go into a coffee shop using inaccurate Italian to describe the size of my coffee order. Rather like employees at Disney’s theme parks referred to as “cast members.” It’s worse, much worse, than calling garbage men ‘sanitation workers.”
On top of that, Starbucks wears it politics on its sleeve. Unwilling to let its coffee speak for itself, every cup and every bag comes with a message that is impeccably, ineffably, politically correct. They have my e-mail address and just advised me that if I bought their coffee 5 cents from every order would go to AIDS research and/or the Global Fund. It’s the sort of “big picture” disembodied charity that Liberals love; one that never seems to help the poor in my town or neighborhood. It’s always the starving in Africa or Asia, thousands of miles away, never the people who call the local churches because they can’t afford to pay their electric bills. Starbucks gives to Conservation International, the African Wildlife Foundation, Save the Children (helping Mayan kids), and they are very much into reversing climate change (good luck on that).
Mind you, I’m sure the AIDS sufferers may benefit, as will the tree huggers, Africa’s elephants and Mayan children. About making the earth climate stand still, I have my doubts. But they strike me as the same as paying your taxes and saying that you have just helped the poor. It’s the charity of Joe Biden: corporate, disembodied, impersonal and oh-so Liberal.
The company I have most admired for its business philosophy is Chick-Fil-A, which does for its employees what no other restaurant chain is willing to do: close on Sunday and give its employees the day off. Now THAT’s corporate responsibility. And I love their ads with the cows.
On a recent trip from our home in Virginia to New Jersey we stopped for gas and a cup of coffee at a Wawa. Their coffee is every bit as good as Starbucks with a greater selection at half the price. And if you want one of those whipped concoctions for which Starbucks charges $3-4 dollars, the price is still just a little over a dollar with no long lines, pretentious names or people pondering whether to have half-caf, half skim low fat mocha with whipped cream on top. As my wife and I walked in, she laughed and said that we’re doing our part to cut expenses as the market tanks and household finances get tight. What better way to economize than to give Starbucks the boot?
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