I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about today. Then I went to Starbucks, and something happened. That’s how Situation Normal works. One minute, I’ve got nothing, the next minute life gives me something. Hopefully, it’s something good🤞
In other news, I’m thrilled to report that Situation Normal has several new paid subscribers. A big thank you & shout out to: Carol & Craig (my aunt and uncle), Kate D., Matthew W., Samuel Clemenstein (aka the Jewish Mark Twain), Gigi P., Emily S., Robert A., and Tom. THANK YOU!
Our flight got in late. LAX was a clusterfuck wrapped in a shit show inside of an endless traffic jam. The 405 was just as bad. It was midnight by the time we got home, and a little after one in the morning before we went to bed. But for some reason—jet lag, the fact that I’m an early riser, or a glutton for punishment—I woke up a little before seven. I was hungry, but there wasn’t any food in the house. We were also out of coffee.
I restocked our supplies at the market, but the thought of using those supplies to make my own coffee and breakfast was just too much to bear. I was running on fumes, and I probably looked like hammered dog-shit, or maybe I just felt that way. Regardless, I needed to refuel, so I drove to Starbucks.
A cheerful voice at the drive-thru asked me how I was doing. I considered telling him about the fumes and the hammered dog-shit feeling, but I didn’t want to burden the voice with my problems.
“I’ll take a large coffee, black. And let me get one of those breakfast sandwiches. The one with eggs and cheese and turkey bacon.”
“You got it! That’ll be eight bucks, even.”
Eight dollars felt like a made-up price. All prices are made-up, of course, but usually they tack on some change to make the price feel legit. When was the last time my bill came out even? Never. Maybe there was a glitch in the matrix, or more likely, a glitch in Starbucks accounting software.
At the pick-up window, a chipper woman handed me a large coffee and a breakfast sandwich. I handed her my credit card, but she waved me off.
“The person ahead of you in line paid for your order,” she explained.
“Really?”
“Yes. You have a good day!”
I wasn’t planning on having a good day. I was planning on dragging ass, but the thought of a free breakfast turned that frown upside-down. OK, I thought, I will have a good day.
When I got home, I wolfed down the breakfast sandwich and sipped my coffee. Slowly, I began to process what had just happened. According to the wisdom of the pre-internet ancients, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But breakfast? That was a different deal, I guess.
Then another thought entered my foggy brain. A stranger had paid for my Starbucks order. Wasn’t that one of those internet trends a few years back? I asked the ye olde Google machine to give me an answer.
Yes! People have been known to pay for strangers in line behind them at the Starbucks drive-thru. In 2014, NBC News1, Time2, CNN3, HuffPost4, and USA Today5 all wrote about a Starbucks in St. Petersburg, Florida, where 378 customers in a row paid for the person behind them in line. The thing I had experienced in real life was a real thing, according to the internet. But even if the reporters who wrote those stories didn’t fact-check the human centipede of caffeinated kindness, I’d still believe. As Mark Twain may, or may not, have said, “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
On the Starbucks sub-Reddit, a user with the handle Localdanishdood claimed two have broken two so-called “pay-it-forward” chains.6 Then Localdanishdood confessed that he felt like a “schmuck” because he declined to pay for a stranger’s iced mocha Frappuccino with two pumps of caramel swirled with a candy cane and topped with whip cream.
Was I as schmuck, I wondered? I didn’t offer to pay for the person behind me in line. For all I knew, I had broken an even longer human centipede of caffeinated kindness. I felt like a schmuck, but I kept scrolling.
Over at Today.com, I found a hard-hitting piece claiming that Starbucks baristas hate “pay-it-forward.”7 The reason? They’d rather that customers express kindness and generosity by leaving a tip. That rang true, but it just made me feel like a different kind of schmuck because I didn’t leave a tip either.
That’s when a result from Headspace, the meditation app, caught my eye. The headline was: “Why you should buy a coffee for the customer behind you.”8 Since I hadn’t done that, I clicked on the article to find out where I’d gone wrong. According to Headspace, paying for the person behind me in line will make me happier. Headspace referenced the human centipede of caffeinated kindness, and to drive the point home, they cited a Stanford study. Stanford! Fuck, I thought, I cheated the barista out of a tip, cheated the person behind me out of a free breakfast, but worst of all, I had cheated myself. How could I redeem myself? The answer was obvious: subscribe to Headspace!
But I didn’t subscribe to Headspace. I kept scrolling and eventually the ye olde Google machine led me to an article from Gawker, a snarky website that used to body-slam internet miscreants like me and Localdanishdood, until one day, Hulk Hogan, with a lawyer paid for by Peter Thiel, body-slammed Gawker for real in a Florida court. Here was Gawker’s take on the human centipede of caffeinated kindness: “Cheap Bastard Ends 10 Hours of Starbucks Customers ‘Paying it Forward.’”9 Ouch! I had rooted for Gawker against the Hulk Hogan / Peter Thiel tag-team, but after the implication that I was a “cheap bastard,” I had second thoughts about supporting the proposition that reporting on a public figure who tells Howard Stern that he made a sex tape with Bubba the Love Sponge’s wife ought to be protected under the First Amendment.
My free breakfast was turning into a real nightmare. According to the internet, I was a two-time schmuck, an underminer of my own happiness, and a cheap bastard, who it would seem, is quick to abandon his principles when the going gets rough. But the great thing about the internet is that there’s always another point of view.
Enter Fast Company, an outlet for well-financed tech bros and the finance bros who finance them. Here was the Fast Company headline on the human centipede of caffeinated kindness: “Breaking A ‘Pay-It-Forward’ Chain Isn’t Being A “Cheap Bastard.” It’s Good Economics.”10 I wasn’t a bad person, I was a good capitalist. Hallelujah! Having found the answer I wanted, I decided to quit searching the internet.
Then I made another decision: free breakfasts, like free lunches are a myth. Sure, that’s just what a good capitalist would say, but here’s the thing: I paid for that breakfast. Not with cash, or credit, or even Apple Pay. No. I paid in a much more valuable currency: self-esteem. The price was high—a lot higher than $8. Which is why, if I ever again find myself in a human centipede of caffeinated kindness, I won’t ask the ye olde Google machine to justify my behavior. Instead, I’ll run my question by ChatGPT, which always tell me what I want to hear, without citing any sources whatsoever.
Or, if you use Substack Notes, hit that Restack button🙏
Stick around and chat
Have you ever been part of a human centipede of caffeinated kindness? Did you “pay it forward,” or were you a schmuck, underminer of your own happiness, cheap bastard, or a good capitalist?
Do you think it’s bizarre that so many serious news outlets would write about what’s essentially a human interest story with a strong PR kicker, or is the internet mostly just clickbait and content marketing at this point?
The breakfast sandwich with egg, cheese, and turkey bacon was solid. But is there a better Starbucks breakfast order? What’s your go-to?
What website should Peter Thiel have Hulk Hogan body-slam next? Please don’t say Situation Normal.
Have you ever had the misfortune of flying into LAX? Tell your story!
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/378-customers-pay-it-forward-strangers-florida-starbucks-n186126
https://time.com/3155287/hundreds-of-strangers-at-this-starbucks-paid-for-each-others-coffee-for-a-day/
https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/us/starbucks-pay-it-forward-chain/index.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/starbucks-pay-it-forward-streak_n_5697113
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/08/21/378-people-pay-it-forward-at-fla-starbucks/14380109/
https://www.reddit.com/r/starbucks/comments/5jqkeo/the_drive_thru_pay_it_forward_thing/
https://www.today.com/food/restaurants/starbucks-baristas-pay-it-forward-lines-rcna62176
https://www.headspace.com/articles/why-you-should-buy-a-coffee-for-the-customer-behind-you
https://www.gawker.com/cheap-bastard-ends-10-hours-of-starbucks-customers-pay-1625511330
https://www.fastcompany.com/3034747/breaking-a-pay-it-forward-chain-isnt-being-a-cheap-bastard-its-good-economics
I would gladly break that pay it forward line at Starbucks. I hate the social pressure to participate in those kinds of things and I don’t like putting other people up to it either. As far as I’m concerned the person who breaks the line is doing everyone after him a favor.
Such a fabulously entertaining piece, Michael. I laughed all the way through. The line "...it just made me feel like a different kind of schmuck because I didn’t leave a tip either..." knocked me out! And such a brilliant ending. Absolute perfection -- and my favorite kind of Michael Estrin. As you say, there are stories everywhere you look!