Have you purchased a tall, black coffee at a Starbucks in Manhattan recently? Of course not, you're slurping a sugared slurry with a caramel drizzle. But for those who do purchase the purest caffeine crutches in the city's best borough, you've seen the price jump from $1.91 after tax to $2.01. My God, since when was everything more expensive in Manhattan?
The Times's Jeff Sommer documents how irritating it is to pull a penny out of one's pocket to finish the transaction, as if we were digging into our mammoth skins to find that last bit of shell money for that gleaming primate skull we've been eyeing all solstice (because it's gleaming). "It's the stupidity of it," one novelist and Starbucks customer tells him. "It's what I'd call 'the annoyance factor.' It's ridiculous. Why the extra penny? Who has pennies?" Yeah, and why aren't there any other places to purchase coffee in Manhattan?
As is the case with corporate behemoths, the ten-cent increase was carefully planned. Some might even say we had warning. According to Starbucks' VP for global communications, most people pay with a credit card, so the extra cent goes unnoticed. And he also reminds us of an easy way to make that nagging penny disappear: “If you bought a coffee and, say, a bagel, you might not notice the price so much." Good point! And we won't notice the coffee's metallic, cadavery zing to the coffee, if we just pick up this Coldplay CD at the counter.
Unlike Bathroomgate, don't look for Starbucks to change their M.O. any time soon. Citing the company's steady share price, an equity analyst insists, "They're doing a lot of things right. Maybe not setting this price at $2.01, but a lot of things."
Perhaps now is the time to support your local bodega, whose coffee may be slightly worse than Starbucks but boy is it always boiling hot. Or just brew your own. Or, do what all your cool friends are doing and move to Park Slope, where a tall Starbucks coffee is just $1.91.
