Hopefully I am not offending any of my brothers-and-sisters-in-coffee by this admission, but I could live a long and happy life without Starbucks.
Except for one thing.
Once in a while, I make my "pact with the devil" (after all, everyone knows Starbucks will eventually take over the world and thus must have some sort of connections with the antichrist) and venture into a Starbucks. Not for the coffee, although I do have some while there---but the real reason I go there is for the internet connection.
You see, one of the sad, pitiful facts of my life is that I suffer horribly from a slow dial-up connection. And, even though I think our neighborhood could not possibly be mistaken for "rural", apparently ISP's pretty much disagree with me.
Recently my ISP let me know that they know have wireless broadband available in our small town. Yippee! I screamed with joy, until I found out the equipment costs. Ouch. So I'm still mulling that one over.
In the meantime, whenever I need a fast connection, I head to Starbucks. Like today. I've been busily downloading software updates while here. At home, this would take literally eons. My computer and I would be long obsolete before the downloads were completed. But here...I relax, people-watch, take advantage of the speedy connection, and smile...
Glad you got free coffee!
ReplyDeleteYears ago, when my cousin returned from being stationed in Okinawa, we took him along grocery shopping. He was similarly overwhelmed, even though he'd shopped in the same store with us two years before.
We Americans sometimes forget how affluent we are as a country, and how overwhelming our selection of choices has grown.