This is a little off-topic but it does involve Starbucks and coffee. I never developed a taste for it, but my husband drinks enough to keep Columbia's economy going for at least a year (well, the legal economy at least). He was at 7 or 8 cups a day when we met.
He has punch cards for every coffee shop, barista bar, and roadside stand in town and can rate each one as we pass them. Since we live in the Northwest, or Starbucks Central - that was about 8 million coffee stands/shops and a buttload of cards (literally since he stuffs them all in his wallet).
One Christmas a pretty white box is delivered to our house. I open it up and find a 5 lb bag of Starbucks Christmas blend which consists of beans from Africa (specifically Ethiopia, I think) which have been shipped to us from New York (don't ask me why Starbucks is shipping to us from NY when we've lived our entire married lives within a short driving distance of Seattle). It's wrapped in a silver ribbon and attached is a card.
My husband was a minister at the time, so I assumed this was from some parishioner who knew of his coffee obsession and sent it as a Christmas gift. I open the card and read:
"Dear Valued Starbucks Customer:"
Yep, he was such a valued customer that Starbucks felt it was worth their time to mail him a 5 lb bag of unground Ethiopian coffee beans shipped in a box from NY and wrapped in ribbon. I was assuming they didn't do this for everyone who had visited a Starbucks that year- after all - I like their hot chocolate and shaken ice tea lemonades but they weren't sending ME anything.
The next time I went in I asked a girl at the counter how much business she would guess a person would have to do with Starbucks in order to rate this "gift". She looked at me and said, "Hmmm...I'm guessing $300 or up a month." Needless to say husband and I had a long conversation about his coffee habit when I got home.
33Girl - If you ever travel the country, you should probably avoid the Pacific NW. I'm fairly certain we have the hipster doofi market cornered....sigh. ... I will say that here - the majority wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks, so it would probably be safe for you.
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