My Dealer Turned on Me

My beloved drive thru turned on me today.

I pulled into the Starbucks as I do every day, ordered my grande non-fat no-whip mocha, as I do every day, and waited for the barista to tell me it would be $3.84, as they do every day.

But today, something interrupted the flow.

“There’s been a little price increase” said the voice inside the speaker. “That’ll be $4.06.”

Wait, huh? Excuse me? Baking powder?

Starbucks must not have gotten the memo. There is an economic crisis going on. We are entering a recession. People are still losing their jobs.

Seattle is a part of this country, right?

But Starbucks decided now is the time to raise prices.

I tweeted about this immediately. Oh, take that! I’ll tweet you! And then I’ll blog you! And you’ll see!

I asked the barista at the window, after handing over my $4.06 if this was a national increase or local. And if it was on the entire menu or specific items. She clearly hadn’t been having a good morning thanks to the news. She informed me it was national and on almost every item and that her store had just been informed of it THIS MORNING. And then she instructed me to get online and send a complaint to corporate!

I considered doing a little math and figuring out exactly how much extra this will cost me over a year’s time and how many regularly priced mochas that amount would equate to and... Ugh, math.

(Which reminds me, my finance class starts tonight. Ugh, finance.)

But still.

Dear God, Starbucks, I feel guilty enough that I buy a grande mocha from you EVERY.SINGLE.DAY and how much that takes from my family’s budget. Why don’t you twist the knife a little more? Why don’t you pour some lemon juice on my paper cut? Huh? And while you’re at it, why don’t you just draw up the divorce papers my husband will be signing when he decides he can’t support my addiction to you anymore?!??

Consider it complained, barista.