Free Starbucks Coffee? How About Some Other Choices?

Well, for all of you that have not heard, today (Tuesday the 8th of April) Starbucks is giving away free coffee. Now before all of you caffeine freaks get all excited and stampede off to the nearest "money dump/buzz shop," it is only eight ounces per person. Sorry to get you all worked up for nothing, well, for not much anyway. Starbuck is trying to promote its' new "Pike Place Roast" brand of coffee by giving out samples starting ant noon today, Eastern Time. It is better than nothing I suppose.

Personally, I can hardly afford gas for my vehicle these days much less coffee which costs more than the gas does. I'll pass. Do not get me wrong, Starbucks makes some tasty stuff but so does Caribou and Seattle's Best. In point of fact, I prefer Seattle's Best over Starbucks and it is cheaper too. I had better duck; someone is liable to throw something at me for speaking such sacrilege! Dare I go on?

Well, if you are still reading, and I have to assume you are, then you must be open to at least hearing about other options for your daily dose of wake-up-juice. If you are like me and just have to have something to pry apart the eyelids but are on a limited budget then Starbucks may have priced themselves right out of the game. So what do we do?

I don't know about your area but I live right across from a Wa-wa. Ok, ok, it is a glorified gas station but it does have good coffee and even decent cappuccinos, in that odd little "out of a machine" way. It will do in a pinch and will definitely not require a second mortgage on your house.

No Wa-wa's in your area? Not even sure what a "wa-wa" is (it is a Canadian Indian word for "goose," I called and asked)? Do you have a 7-11 nearby? I have found their coffee to be acceptable also. Ok, it is not Starbucks by any stretch of the imagination but it will get the job done and usually isn't too bad. I will confess, their "out of the machine" cappuccino, to use an old term from my Army days, "blows big chunks."

Alright, you have no Wa-wa and you don't want merely serviceable coffee from 7-11. Fair enough, have you tried McDonald's coffee lately? I readily admit it didn't used to be much but Mickey D's has come along way recently. You really should give them a try.

All three of these have at least decent coffee and Wa-wa has downright good coffee in my opinion. As far as I am concerned, the biggest plus for them is that they simply do not charge the outrageous prices of the trendier coffee shops.

Of course, if you simply must have the "coffee shop" atmosphere," I have always fond Seattle's Best to be a good coffee shop. As I pointed out earlier, it is cheaper and, to me, it tastes better.

None of this really matters though, Starbucks is going like gangbusters every time I go by there and, no doubt, will continue to do so. I am firmly convinced that, even if gas prices continue to rise, people will who are addicted to Starbucks, the name brand, will buy their coffee there before they put gas in the tank.

And they say cocaine is addictive.