Starbucks: A Lifestyle Choice
Lifestyle choices – we all make them, we all have them, and they are all one step away from being categorized as an addiction, usually by those who do not share the opinion or who cannot relate to the value derived from such choices.
I have one: Starbucks. Not coffee, not tea – Starbucks. I have had this conversation many times and still there are those that cannot understand. It’s not the store, nor the coffee, not the high-maintenance frou-frou drinks. It’s the consistency in the experience, from the time you walk through the door to the last sip of the drink, it’s the experience. I can enter any Starbucks and order the same drink and it comes out the same way – most times. And the times it does not? I can have it remade, often accompanied by a coupon for a free drink the next time I wander through (any Starbucks). It’s the experience. I have a friend who drinks diet cokes on a regular basis. He drinks it for the flavor, which is consistent from drink to drink to drink. It’s the experience.
Family and friends try to convince me that my choice is an addictions, citing cost and my ability to accept that coffee is worth the $3:25+soy+tax, but if I were to have coffee at home instead of Starbucks, making the bottom line cost less than drinking a couple of diet cokes a day, would drinking the diet coke be the addiction instead?
We all make choices. It’s how we act upon those choices that truly determine whether we are involved in addictive behaviors. In my case, there have been days where I may not enter a Starbucks for hours, sometimes delaying my arrival into their parking lot until well past noon. Personally I feel it just enhances the anticipation. When I finally consume the custom made drink I can feel the calm settle over me like a warm blanket and all is right with the world again.
It’s the experience, simple, pure, consistent. However, there was one event that happened recently which, to me, could be construed as an addictive behavior. Standing in front of the Starbucks cashier the other day, I realize I recognized the driver of the car coming through the drive-thru as having come through days earlier. I can’t imagine someone short-changing themselves, accepting just the coffee drink without any regards to coming into the store and being immersion into the full Starbucks experience. Just a quick run around a building to get a drink – if that is not an example of addiction than I don’t know what is.
I think I will have another Starbucks since mine has reached the end of the cup. Besides, my hands are starting to shake.
I have one: Starbucks. Not coffee, not tea – Starbucks. I have had this conversation many times and still there are those that cannot understand. It’s not the store, nor the coffee, not the high-maintenance frou-frou drinks. It’s the consistency in the experience, from the time you walk through the door to the last sip of the drink, it’s the experience. I can enter any Starbucks and order the same drink and it comes out the same way – most times. And the times it does not? I can have it remade, often accompanied by a coupon for a free drink the next time I wander through (any Starbucks). It’s the experience. I have a friend who drinks diet cokes on a regular basis. He drinks it for the flavor, which is consistent from drink to drink to drink. It’s the experience.
Family and friends try to convince me that my choice is an addictions, citing cost and my ability to accept that coffee is worth the $3:25+soy+tax, but if I were to have coffee at home instead of Starbucks, making the bottom line cost less than drinking a couple of diet cokes a day, would drinking the diet coke be the addiction instead?
We all make choices. It’s how we act upon those choices that truly determine whether we are involved in addictive behaviors. In my case, there have been days where I may not enter a Starbucks for hours, sometimes delaying my arrival into their parking lot until well past noon. Personally I feel it just enhances the anticipation. When I finally consume the custom made drink I can feel the calm settle over me like a warm blanket and all is right with the world again.
It’s the experience, simple, pure, consistent. However, there was one event that happened recently which, to me, could be construed as an addictive behavior. Standing in front of the Starbucks cashier the other day, I realize I recognized the driver of the car coming through the drive-thru as having come through days earlier. I can’t imagine someone short-changing themselves, accepting just the coffee drink without any regards to coming into the store and being immersion into the full Starbucks experience. Just a quick run around a building to get a drink – if that is not an example of addiction than I don’t know what is.
I think I will have another Starbucks since mine has reached the end of the cup. Besides, my hands are starting to shake.
posted by G. Steven Nolte at 12:01 PM
1 Comments:
So I look at the clock(s) on my computer and see it's a little after 2am in New Mexico. And I am thinking, in a few hours they will get up at the crack of dawn (what, 8am?) and head for the river. Meanwhile, I am sitting here sipping Starbucks coffee, brewed here in the house (with my trusty Bunn) and being drank from a Podstakannik, a Soviet train tea cup holder with an actual crystal glass. (look it up)
No soy, no fro-fro, no 180 degrees, no sugar, nothing but good stout Starbucks coffee. But I do miss the pastries that so often perfects the experience further. So, that being said, enjoy the fishing and I think I will go refill my Podstakannik.
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