Starbucks, Part 1

Confession: On balance, I'm a starbucks fan. Super convenient, good coffee, they don't throw tons of advertising in your face, and the baked goods are all right. I'm not crazy about how they've made $1.50 for a cup the national acceptable norm, but the good generally outweighs the bad. But man do they infuriate me in a few, minor respects.

Here's the big problem. The lids. They suck. The starbucks coffee lid must be declared a complete failure.

The "sippy" lid has only one thing going for it. If you are planning a long stay in the Starbucks, staring blankly at your open nursing textbook for hours, the sippy lid will indeed keep the coffee warmer for longer as you take the occasional sip.

But if you need the lid for some other crazy purpose, like say, containing the coffee, you are shit out of luck aren't you? How many of us have gone through the delicate balancing act of trying to carry one or many sippy-lidded beverages without spilling anything? How many of us have winced every time the car hits a bump and we glance over to see if our front seats are covered in wet coffee?

Now consider the beauty of the standard gas-n-gulp coffee lid. Fits snugly around the cup, keeps the beverage warm, and has been proven not to spill its contents during any earthquake up to magnitude 8. It's the lid endorsed by the Scouts of America, and the only one stocked on the space shuttle. It is, to put it succinctly, a better lid.

And Starbucks does not carry this lid. It's the sippy lid or fuck you. Keep in mind, most good lids have the peel-back option, so you can turn your gas-n-gulp lid into a sippy lid at the merest whim. Starbucks does not understand this. They could sit me down, I suppose, and give me a powerpoint presentation complete with pie charts, showing their customers prefer the sippy lid overwhelmingly versus the "better" variety of lid, and I still wouldn't be convinced. Why not stock both?

But here, ladies and gentlemen, is the coo d'grah. Starbucks, on their drink counters, offer SCOTCH TAPE DISPENSERS to the customers. Christ on a bicycle. They know that their lids can't keep coffee in the cup, so they offer scotch tape so that enterprising customers, faced with a bumpy car ride, can attempt some home-repair on their weak ass lid.

But even this insulting gesture doesn't even solve the problem. Those of you who have attempted to scotch tape a starbucks lid know what I mean. There is the main sippy hole, which usually gets taped up. Then there is a secondary "blow hole" at the top of the lid, quite tiny. And then there is a sneaky third hole, down in the "reservoir basin" portion of the lid, which cannot be taped at all.

Furthermore, as many of you also know, the Starbucks sippy lid for no reason whatsoever, occasionally dribbles coffee down the side. This, to my knowledge, has no cure.

Even if Operation Lid-Tape is a complete success, and you arrive at your destination with no spills, you get to enjoy a cup of coffee that tastes faintly of adhesive glue. Congratulations.

Tomorrow, part 2 of the Starbucks complaint. Stay tuned.