“It’s weird when it’s minus 30 and you’re rolling up to Starbucks to get a giant, iced coffee,” my artist wife once admitted to me.
Weird, she says? That doesn’t quite characterize it.
There are many questions that arise from this statement:
- What’s an iced coffee?
- Is it a coffee-flavoured slurpee?
- Who buys a slurpee — coffee-flavoured or otherwise — when it’s snot-frozen-to-my-moustache cold outside?
- Why can’t she make her coffee at home?
If she truly wanted that slurpee, she could toss her homemade coffee into the freezer overnight and, voila, it would be ready to thaw into a slurpee in the morning.
Better yet, toss it in the 3-foot-high snowbank outside. It would freeze faster and be ready to thaw much sooner.
But let’s cut to the bone of her Starbucks statement.
The sheer amount of money my artist wife has invested in Starbucks — without actually investing it — is ridiculous.
Unlike her, I have literally invested in Starbucks.
I purchased one share in our stock portfolio a few years ago to prove a point: It’s more worthwhile to give Starbucks our money as a shareholder than as a customer.
Like any Starbucks addict, she was less than impressed with my financial stunt.
Like any Starbucks addict, she was less than impressed with my financial stunt.
At least, I assumed as much based on her cold, cocked eyebrow; terse, perched lips; and the irritated, indignant glaze covering her irises. I’m certain it wasn’t caused by constipation.
Lest I ever tell her that I sold it two days later. I made a stellar return in the process: 32 cents.
Just imagine: Had I held that one stock for another week, I probably could have paid for her iced coffee myself.
Then again, maybe not. Starbucks isn’t cheap.
Let’s be clear here. Starbucks isn’t exclusively an artist problem. It just so happens that my wife, who is addicted to Starbucks, is an artist; as are many of her artist friends.
Yet, artists are an endemically poor bunch financially. They’re rich in creativity, innovation, and quirkiness; but they’re not a bunch known for collectively rolling in the dough.
Sure, there are many who have “made it big.” Yet, for every artist who makes a financial go of their art business, there are dozens who either haven’t made their art business financially viable or simply aren’t interested in doing so.
At the same time, these poor artists have become addicted to some of the most expensive coffee on the continent. How do they afford a daily dose?
The irony is as rich as the frothy cream in the extravagant, over-priced lattés they consume.
For my wife, it’s certainly not a cause for concern. Or so I’m told. And so I must believe.
Just don’t remind me of the day she bought the coldest coffee known to man on the coldest day known to that same man who also happened to be without his one share in Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) while he had snot frozen to his moustache.
???????