More people who make me want to stab myself (or them) in the eye...

So, I think I may piss a few people off with this one, but I hate the coffee-addicted, Starbucks toting, yuppy idiots that have infested every corner of our country. Since when did it become cool to spend $5 a day for an overrated drink that is actually making you poorer and fatter at the same time? I just don't get it. I don't understand why we have to have drive-thru coffee stands at least once a block for the caffeine-dependent folks up here in Anchorage. I can't tell you how many near accidents I have witnessed because someone decided last minute to shoot across two or more lanes of traffic to get to the coffee stand.

Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a cup of coffee on occasion. Typically I only drink it at a restaurant with a dessert or when out for breakfast, but personally we don't own a coffee-maker and probably never will. I'm not anti-coffee by any means. I just hate the fact that drinking coffee has almost become a status symbol. I truly believe many people drink it to make themselves look/feel cool rather than because they truly enjoy it. Either that or they have to put so much cream, sugar and flavorings into it that it's not coffee anymore, it's dessert...and packs 400 or more calories per cup. And then there are those that act like they can't live without it. You go anywhere with them and they have to stop, if not once then several times, to get coffee because it's the only thing that 'keeps them going'. If coffee is truly the only thing in their life that 'keeps them going' I feel very sorry for them.

Then I read this article about the fight between McDonald's and their new McCafe offerings and Starbucks and how Starbucks is not doing well recently. In response to this article, at least 20 people had commented on how they will never got to McDonald's for coffee because Starbucks is so much classier and relaxing. I laughed out loud. On the few occasions I have ever entered a Starbucks, class is not what I saw. I saw mother's sipping coffee and gossiping with friends while ignoring their children ransacking the napkin and creamer area. I saw people buying their 8 year olds a latte (training them young). I saw/heard at least five people chatting very loudly on their cell phones, some with very inappropriate conversations for public. Overall, I wasn't impressed. There have been a few locally owned coffee places that I have gone to to visit with friends and had a good time, but they were not a chain. The only good thing that I can really say about Starbucks is they are pretty consistent in drink quality. Because they are a chain, they standardize how they make a drink, so you are pretty guaranteed the same drink no matter which of the infestations (I mean stores) you end up picking it up in. Other than that...it's a corporation. Period. It's out there to sell you crap you don't really need at a price that's exorbitantly higher than what you would spend if you made your coffee yourself. And then they wonder why sales are down? There is a downturn in the economy (I refuse to call it a crisis because I believe it is more of a perceived crisis that we have created ourselves) and people are cutting out frivilous things. Spending $5 a day on coffee is frivilous. Let's say you get one coffee every day of the year (I know there are holidays and it won't always happen, but I do know some people who get a few extra every weekend). At $5 a pop, that's an extra $1,825 a year that you are spending on coffee. On coffee! That's just insane to me.

Like I said, I just don't get it. And, quite honestly, I don't want to! =)