See You Later Starbucks- Week 5 Wrap-Up

My friends are amazing.  They are beautiful, amazing people, generous with their time and their things.  Recently I was without a car for three months, yes you read the correctly, THREE MONTHS, and during that time it was by the grace of my friends that I got to work, the grocery store, out to dinner, anywhere.  I love and appreciate them more than words can say.

All that said…  My friends are a bunch of jerks.  Well, at least when it came to this week’s challenge.  My affection for Starbucks is widely known, I don’t make any secret of it and I don’t apologize for it.  And I go there.  A lot.  So when my friends found out about me giving it up for a week?  It was open season.

“So I guess we shouldn’t invite you when we go for our afternoon Starbucks run?”

(Since when have you been going for an afternoon Starbucks run?  And if you did you weren’t inviting me anyway.)

“Where should we go for lunch today?  Oh, hey how about Starbucks…  Oh right, Jamie can’t.”

(Since when did we ever go to Starbucks for lunch?)

“Oh hey, Jamie…  Look at this nice warm Starbucks…  Doesn’t it smell goooood.”

(I hate you right now.)

It was all in good fun, I know, and I’m not really mad.  But it was funny how suddenly everybody felt the need to parade all things Starbucks in my field of vision (and smell).

It’s because they all know.  They all know that it’s a staple in my routine.  If I have to be at work early or late, there will be Starbucks involved.  I wasn’t always this way.  In fact, for years I didn’t drink coffee, really at all.  I’m not sure what changed it, probably when I gave up soda several years ago and needed to get a caffeine kick some other way.  That and a couple of visits to Europe where coffee is just…  Different.  To this day I don’t drink coffee black, except when I am in Europe.  It’s better.  Darker, bolder, less chemical crap in it. 

I’ve never been one of those pot a day people.  My mother was like that as I was growing up.  Actually she a pots-a-day plural kind of lady.  There was always coffee in our house.  As years passed so did the coffee addiction and slowly it rubbed off on me.  I rarely ever drank it at home though because I never wanted to brew an entire pot and instant coffee makes me want to gag.  And then one day I received the most wonderful gift….  A Keurig.  If you don’t have one of these, get one.  They are the most amazing invention on earth.  Good, brewed coffee…  By the cup.  It’s kind of amazing. 

So how does this relate to Starbucks?  Well I think part of the draw is that at Starbucks you get a cup of coffee.  It’s a one-off and that is generally all I want.  So why is the Keurig not enough?  Well, 2 things.  I have found that really its espresso I truly love and, particularly here in Florida, I usually want some sort of cold iced concoction.  And pouring a home brewed cup of coffee over ice is just not the same.  I love a good caramel macchiato and without an espresso machine at home I can’t make it.  And even if I had an espresso machine at home?  That just seems like a lot of work when there is a nice barista who will make it for me.

And well that’s part of the charm right?  There’s a convenience factor.  I just go in and decide what I want and somebody makes it for me.  And then if I want to I can sit in a comfy chair, or write on my lap top at one of the tables.  I can snuggle up inside to get out of the cold, or cool off to get out of the heat, or when the weather is nice I can sit outside and enjoy the air.  It’s social without having to be social.  You are among people but solitary.  That’s a feeling I like sometimes.  Or, of course if you go with someone else you can sit and talk without having to spend the money on a whole meal and without having to put either person out by going to their house.  And I run into people I know there all time which is always a pleasant surprise.

And then of course there are the baristas.  When you go to a place enough the people who work there start to know you, recognize you, remember you.  And like the Cheers song says, sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name.  There is something comforting about someone else recognizing something about your routine.  It’s a safe relationship.  You can be happy to see each other, know enough to guess what I am going to want, we can share some pleasantries, but you never have to dive deeper than that.  You don’t, like in an actual friendship, have to worry about any of the emotions that go along with truly knowing another person.  Now before anyone thinks I am anti-social or that I don’t like to become emotionally involved with people, this is far from true.  I’m probably one of the most, if not the most emotionally open person I know.  I absolutely crave human contact and I will be the first person to talk to you about the deepest, darkest parts of your being.

But sometimes, it’s nice to have a break.  Sometimes its nice to say hello, how are you, thank you, and goodbye and feel like you’ve made a connection of some kind, any kind.  I suspect this is the attraction of most merchant-customer relationships like this, even if we never consider it.  There is a mutual appreciation.  The merchant appreciates the business, and therefore the job security, not to mention a familiar face who they know will continue to be pleasant to them since they don’t want someone to spit in their coffee the next time they come back.  The customer appreciates the business being there for them when they need it or want it (and believe me, I have no greater appreciation for ANYONE than I do the Starbucks barista at 3am when I just got up from a 2 hour nap after working 23 hours straight and I am on my way back in for more.  At that moment, there is no greater human being in the world), and they appreciate the familiar face they know is not going to spit in their coffee the next time they come back.  It’s a win win.

I know there are those out there who will shake their fists and scream about how I should be supporting small family owned coffee houses rather than a giant corporate conglomerate.  And I get that.  And if there was such a place near me I would absolutely support it.  But the fact of the matter is that there isn’t.  There’s a Starbucks within 3 blocks of my house and another within a mile and nothing else that comes close for miles.  There’s a great place called Stardust Video and Coffee http://stardustvideoandcoffee.wordpress.com/ that I love and would totally support, but it’s on the other side of Orlando, probably an hour drive.  It doesn’t make sense, and it certainly doesn’t make sense for regular visits.  Plus there is something comforting about knowing I can walk into a Starbucks anywhere in the world and get a drink that I know exactly how it will taste.  And I do mean anywhere in the world.  I once got a frappacino from a Starbucks on the bottom level of the Louvre.  I’m big on experiencing local culture and food when I am abroad, but by that time I had been living in France for nearly a month and was just a teeny bit homesick and that frappacino was the best damn thing I had ever tasted in my life.

And I am not the only one who feels this way.  If you want to read about someone else’s affection for Starbucks check out this blog.  http://teachingtuckandty.blogspot.com/2011/01/starbucks.html

It’s not an entire blog devoted to Starbucks, but she does mention it in a few entries and how, after her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly, Starbucks was the only place she felt she could go and feel normal.  This, by the way, is one of the best damn blogs on the internet and everyone should read it.  But I digress.

So, why then, if I am so hell bent on extolling the virtues of Starbucks did I want to give it up?  That’s easy.  It’s expensive.  In both dollars and calories it is expensive.  And dollars and calories are both things that I can not afford to give up freely.  I have several different drinks I get regularly, but the most common for me is an iced venti non-fat caramel macchiato quad (meaning with an extra shot of espresso).  This drink costs just under $5.  And if I get one 3 or 4 days a week…  52 weeks a year…  You do the math…  I don’t want to.  And not to mention while I am there I will often grab a breakfast sandwich or a yogurt.  Cha-ching….

Calories wise we’re talking about somewhere around 275 calories every time I get the drink.  Let’s say you have an average allotted calorie intake of 1500 (it’s actually a few hundred less for some people), then you only have 1225 left…  And sometimes I go to Starbucks more than once a day…  You do the math.  I don’t want to.

So there you have it.  The great Starbucks shut out began.

I should start off by saying in all fairness that this week was made a little easier by the fact that I did not have a car for most of it.  I was relying on rides to and from work and I wasn’t going to ask someone who was already doing me a favor to make an extra stop on their way.  If I’m already putting someone out I’m not going to ask them to go further out of their way.  Sure, I could have gotten up a little earlier and walked to the one 2 blocks away if I really wanted to but I didn’t want to.  So because of that it wasn’t really an option and it definitely makes things easier when it’s just not an option.

Well, except for that one day.  Several of us had gone out to lunch and on the way back I hopped in my friend Erin’s car.  Mind you, this was after several days of taunting from everyone in the office.  And I was jonesing a little bit.  Sure, I was drinking some home brewed Keurig awesomeness every morning, but it just wasn’t the same.  And the pumpkin spice latte had just come back.  And I wanted one.  Bad.  I hopped in Erin’s car and she announced she wanted to stop at Starbucks on the way back to the office.

Crap.

Just crap.

The wheels in my head started turning.  I mean, it was Erin’s decision to go.  If we were already there then technically I wasn’t breaking the rules right?  I said I wouldn’t GO to Starbucks, but here someone had TAKEN me to Starbucks, through no fault of my own.  I could get a tall, just a taste really.  It wasn’t my fault.  And it would be silly to be there and not go in.  Or, what if Erin got it for me?  I mean it’s not unusual for us in the office to make a run for each other.  I could pay her back next week.  Then it wouldn’t even be me getting the coffee.  And it would be rude of me to not take it if she got me something….

I stayed in the car.  I waited in the car and didn’t go in and declined Erin’s offer for her to get me something.  And that was that.

I missed it.  I passed it every day and damn if I didn’t want to stop.  And if I had had my own car it would have been a lot more difficult.  But I could have done it.  I’ve found some substitutes that are good enough, though definitely not the same.  I have those plastic Starbucks cold cups and with the right flavored creamers it was passable.  But you still don’t get the experience with that.  So you are left with just a passable drink with none of the extras.  It’s not the same.

But then, sometimes things can’t stay the same to get better and that’s where I am at.  The bottom line is that I can’t afford to do what I have been doing.  In any way.  I can’t afford it anymore.  So I have to change, have to find a way to make passable be enough.  Oh how true this is of my whole life.

So I’m not going to stop going.  But I think I will start to look for options that are cheaper in both dollars and calories and using them less often.  After all, the real experience I’m looking for is a better life.