I live in a smallish Midwest city where we just got our first Starbucks. I know in other cities, Starbucks seem to pop up all over the place, even right across the street from each other. Now that we have the one, I am half expecting to wake up one morning and find them all over town. I won’t even be able to gas up my car – all the gas stations will have been replaced by Starbucks. I’m guessing that’s why big cities rely on public transportation so much.

I’m not really sure how Starbucks multiply, though. Do you need a breeding pair? A male coffee shop and female coffee shop who really love each other and decide to commit to a monogamous relationship in order to make little baby Starbucks? If so, we are probably safe. Our Starbucks isn’t even out on it’s own yet. It still lives at home – inside the brand new Barnes and Noble book store that just opened.

I’m not sure when we started putting stores inside other stores. It seems odd to me. Would you put a Jiffy Lube inside a Krispy Kreme? As cool as that sounds, I don’t think so.

Honestly, I think one Starbucks is plenty. I tried my first Frappuccino the other day, and I can only say it tastes a lot like coffee. Cold coffee.

Sounds like a good gimmick. Put left over coffee and a few ice cubes in a blender and sell it to the suckers. For 3 bucks! I really wanted to like Frappuccino. That would have made me cool and trendy instead of, well…me.

I’ll stick with hot coffee from now on. Like the Folgers they have in the cafeteria at work. Fifty cents, including tax. And it’s good.

I know I’m some sort of barbarian, not being able to tell the difference between a fifty cent cup of Folgers and a $3.00 cup of designer Kenyan uber coffee. It isn’t that I don’t like the expensive coffee. It’s just that it tastes pretty much the same as the Folgers to me. They are both really good. And yes, I could make some inappropriate joke here about how I like my women like I like my coffee – hot and cheap, but that would be beneath me. Besides, there’s always the slim chance my wife will read this.

Maybe the problem is that I take my coffee black. If you like various flavorings and dairy products in your coffee, Starbucks is probably the place for you. They love to add stuff to coffee there. At some point, you have to wonder how much coffee is left in your coffee. I see that sort of thing as diluting my caffeine. That’s not cool at all, no matter how fun it is to order a “Tall Hazelnut Caffe’ Latte with room” – whatever that is.

The real Starbucks product I was hoping to experience is Wireless internet access, also know as WiFi. Many Starbucks around the country offer this. Sadly, ours does not. My poor little laptop will just have to stay at home, I guess.

I do have WiFi in my house, so that’s ok. And my coffee is much cheaper than Starbucks.