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In between going to cathedrals I didn’t know anything about and falling asleep on park benches after refusing to adjust to the time change, my high school trip to Spain and France was a combination of bus rides and trying to find places to pee. The year was 2004, and I was a 17-year-old kid piece of shit who listened to punk music and strived to do every school project on freeing political prisoners.
One day while we were walking the streets of Toledo, Spain, our teachers (who were in way over their heads with the group of twenty-five students) told us that our last opportunity to go to the bathroom would be at a nearby Starbucks before getting on the bus and heading back to Madrid.
“Huh, I’ve never been to a Starbucks before,” I said in passing to my best friend.
“Hold on, what?” he said to me with disgust.
“Yeah, never been to one.” I thought nothing of it.
After all, we were all from a small town in Northern Michigan that not only doesn’t have a single stop light, but there is no semblance of a chain restaurant unless you go across the bay to where the Class A school is. Not only was I not a coffee drinker, but I just never saw any reason to find myself in one of the more than 21,000 Starbucks locations across the world.
“That means you can’t go in, man,” my friend explained. “You’ve made it seventeen years. You can’t go back now.”
He couldn’t have been more right. I mean, how many people in the world can say they haven’t been in one of the most popular chains there is? McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Apple Stores, Starbucks. If someone told me they avoided any of those, I’d think they were an absolute madman. But me? I stuck with it.
Eleven years later, I still haven’t gotten close to stepping inside of one. College? Sure, I’d be in the same vicinity as the kiosks in the library, but I never folded. When I lived in San Francisco, I went to the nearby Peet’s and turned up my nose at the pawns ordering Venti and Grande Lattes. And when I moved back to Michigan? I was never faced with going in one unless I was visiting my friends in Chicago and New York.
Full disclosure, I actually take zero issue with what Starbucks does. I’m sure their coffee is better than the Folgers my mom drinks, they do a hell of a job retaining their loyal customers, and they’re even selling booze now which may be the straw that breaks the camels back in my abstinence with them. Hell, the Chairman and CEO even went to Northern Michigan University, and I’m still avoiding their storefronts like the plague.
I almost feel bad because to be honest, I take no issue with the people that actually go to Starbucks. You can post your misspelled name online all you want and I’m not going to judge you for it. It’s funny. It’s culturally relevant, and it gets you more than eleven likes because everyone identifies with you. But I’m still not going to step foot in one.
When it’s all said and done, I kind of like that I’ve avoided this cultural phenomenon. I like turning people’s heads and hearing, “What?!” when I drop that I’ve never been inside of one. I get off on people not believing me that I’ve somehow shunned them for a better part of a decade. And truthfully, I like that I can call people “sell out pieces of shit” for enjoying Pumpkin Spice Lattes.
At least I haven’t sold out too, and that’s something the punk rock-listening high school me can get behind. .
Image via Shutterstock
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
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I thought you were basic??
If you think this was easy to admit, it wasn’t.
As some one who hates that he loves Starbucks I don’t know if I should congratulate you or give you a hug.
I’ve never been in an apple store and I have a macbook, iPhone and iPad. I like their products but i’m not hanging with those nerds.
My Mom always finds a way to make the comment that she has never eaten at Chipotle, and it’s always said without a hint of emotion one way or the other. But I get the feeling her position on the matter more or less equate to Will’s…in any event – shut up, Mom, and shut up, Will.
You’re not missing anything. I’ve been because I needed a cup of actual coffee (not a diabetic coma in a cup) or just to get out of the office. Never really seen why there’s such a craze. It’s just a coffee shop.
And here I was thinking I was the only one. Will, can we be friends? I enjoy golf, gin, and secretly/openly despising my girlfriend.
Not going to lie, I’m gold level with the Starbucks rewards program, mostly for the bonus star deals. It works though…I went today and was upsold into getting a cookie straw. I didn’t hate it.
Plus I do sometimes sit in Starbucks on my laptop. I’d do it at my apartment too, but like George Costanza watching a movie at Jerry’s, if I do it there “I’m out of the house, I’m doing something.”
My “never haves” are usually movies.
Being from CT where my small town had FIVE Dunkin Donuts, that was always the go to. Since moving to NYC it’s become a real addiction to hit Starbucks every single morning. $8.00 later I feel like an asshole, but will do it all again tomorrow.
I only go there when I get a gift card. Otherwise I follow the hipsters to whatever coffee shops they go to, since that’s your best bet for great coffee short of brewing it yourself.
Yeah. The hipsters would also love to tell you about which beers are the best and what music you should listen to. Have fun with that. Say hi to Kendra.
Maybe don’t say hi to Kendra unless you want to be mentioned in her “30 Things I Hate When I’m Getting Coffee” article.
Kendra gets her coffee with soy milk
“Ooh, and can I have a piece of the gluten-free zucchini bread? By the way, I like your skinny tie.”
-Kendra
I’ve never been partial to PBR or bands that wear vests and rock accordions, but local hipster coffee places do tend to have the best coffee and certainly better than Starbucks.