Starbucks and Signs
Starbucks needs to improve its advertising.
The other day I went in for a coffee and waited for my friend. The store had posted in their windows the mandatory winter signs issued to all the Starbucks—various sayings you’d expect to find in a fortune cookie written by an ESL student.
The first sign read:
Friends are like snowflakes. Beautiful and different.
I checked my phone’s clock. My indifferent friend was running late, real late. I started to see the other side of snowflakes: ephemeral and cold. I sipped some more on my coffee… alone. I pulled out my magazine.
The next banner pasted against the window said:
Once a bean traveled the world to find you here.
It didn’t help that I was reading The Atlantic—The global warming issue. Why was Starbucks having a bean circumnavigate the globe anyway? I wondered. There has got to be a better logistics person working for this billion-dollar corporation that can help find a more direct route. I put down my magazine and fished into my bag for a less depressing read—The Alchemist.
The last sign read:
Stories are gifts.
“Is that The Alchemist?” some old lady asked me. She was dressed like a twenty year-old off to the clubs. I couldn’t look at her. “I remember when I read The Alchemist… Don’t you just love the part when… All is one…” She wouldn’t stop talking. I looked back at the sign and slammed the book gently against my face. I took one more sip from my depressing cup of coffee and said “Excuse me.” I left the table and walked over to the only optimistic sign in the place: Restrooms.
