For the first time in my three years here at UW-Madison, my aggregate weekly coffee expenses have outpaced my alcohol expenses, a new trend in my life that I had never even remotely anticipated.
Since the fall semester began, I've averaged about $4 to $5 per day, five to seven days per week on coffee alone, with all of the money going straight to one deliciously addictive place-Starbucks.
Last week, Starbucks instituted its 11-cent per-cup price increase at its 357 million locations around the country. This raised my usual-Venti no-whip caf?? mocha-from $4.20 after tax to $4.31 after tax. Unlike most products, a price increase on my favorite coffee drinks doesn't deter me from frequenting Starbucks one iota.
Real anger would come from denying me any Starbucks coffee, not from some nominal price increase. I suppose the worst part about this situation is that Starbucks knows how desperately its regular clientele yearns for, and/or is addicted to, its products.
Several of my coffee-drinking cohorts chide my love for Starbucks, constantly reminding me of the evils of corporate America or the overt trendiness of the company.
\Go to Espresso Royale or Steep 'N Brew,"" they say. ""Fight the evil empire. Bush is the devil,"" and so on.
I must admit that Espresso Royale makes fantastic coffee, and the atmosphere is decidedly much more ""Madisonian,"" but I go to Starbucks for the simple fact that they have the best fucking coffee you can buy. While the corporate ideology of a company like Wal-Mart really turns me off, when it comes to Starbucks, I say pour it on, baby-the more corporate the better, so long as the coffee stays amazing.
In the two months since the semester kicked off, I've increased my coffee-drink intake from one to two cups per day. If this trend keeps on pace, I'll be up to five or six cups of coffee a day by January-what authorities will undoubtedly define as ""binge coffee drinking.""
I'll walk around town with a coffee bong, daring anyone foolish enough to cross my path with a latte or Caramel Machiatto to ""step on up and challenge the man."" In the process I will become a coffee legend on campuses nationwide, thereby attracting the attention of the media.
USA Today will do numerous Infographics on the dangerous trend of binge coffee drinking on college campuses (where ""bingeing"" is defined as five or more coffee drinks in one night over a two-week period), and the Princeton Review will have to add another category to the party-school rankings, where ""Coffee"" will join other party criteria such as ""Beer,"" ""Hard Alcohol"" and ""Reefer Madness."" Newsweek and Time will publish myriad expos??s on families destroyed by college coffee binge drinking, and Playboy will inform its readers on how to be a sexy, swingin' college coffee king.
After I graduate and start a family, my wife will have to say each morning to our kids, ""Daddy is a little testy because he hasn't had his coffee yet. Go out in the yard and do your incessant screaming there, OK sweeties?""
My coffee addiction has gotten so bad that I now write about having a wife and kids. Jack Daniel's never made me think about marriage and parenting.
writePNL@yahoo.com.
