My bookstore hopping took me to the B&N in Freehold on Wednesday morning, to purchase books for the school's book drive and a birthday gift for tomorrow as well as to look for Sept.'s Christianity Today issue.

The events of the morning got me to the store just as it opened at 10AM, and I saw a neighbor exiting the parking lot. We waved at each other and I wondered how she could have made her bookstore purchase so quickly with the store just opening. Then it dawned on me: she was visiting the adjacent Starbucks! She is true to her word!

On two separate visits to her home this summer, she asked me the exact same question, "Teresa, have you ever gone to Starbucks?"

A couple of times, I replied, to get the kids a snack.

"But don't you get anything?" she queried. I lied and said that I get a cup of their hot chocolate¹.

"Do they sell hot chocolate?" she snagged.

"Of course they do, don't they?" I bluffed, trying not to blush.

I mean, I wanted to appear acceptably hip. You know, she reads Cosmo.

She said that she never noticed hot chocolate but will look for it next time because it sounded good.

She said that her school-day morning routine involves dropping off her daughter and continuing to the Starbucks for a cup of coffee. This year, her daughter takes the bus to public school but I see that the Starbucks outing is still a part of her morning. Jeff suggested that the money saved from private school tuition be funneled into some in-home Starbucks brewing equipment.

I'm not a coffee drinker. That makes socializing difficult and actually causes misunderstandings. I mean, I can't even fake it, to fake drinking coffee, to nurse a cup of coffee during a morning visit with a neighbor. Invariably they notice that I'm not drinking and think that they've made it too strong or too weak and they eventually throw up their hands and say, "Oh, I just can't make coffee!" And they offer tea instead.

It's nothing "principled" as far as I know. I haven't any Mormon tendencies or any other asceticisms. I do drink caffeine, so it's not that. I worked a few summers in my father's coffee shop growing up, serving customers and washing dishes. But I don't even think that experience drove me to dislike coffee. It certainly didn't affect my love of doughnuts!

ABC's Jeopardy! when the Mormon Ken Jennings won millions might have asked a question based on this Clementine trivia. But, no matter its source, it's interesting to think about the potential influence on such a seemingly insignificant debate ... or how insignificant the "question of coffee" has become in most Western Christian circles ...

From Wiki:

Coffee aficionados claim that the spread of its popularity is due to Pope Clement VIII's influence.

Being pressured by his advisers to declare coffee the "bitter invention of Satan" because of its popularity among Muslims, he instead declared that, "This devil's drink is so good... we should cheat the devil by baptizing it."

It is not clear whether this is a true story.

¹"The nation also has become increasingly indulgent since 9/11." - "Starbucks pours indulgent chocolate drink", USA Today, 10/13/2004

I remember immediately after 9/11 not wanting to enjoy any special pleasures at all, like a mourning, like some temporary asceticism.