I'm a Veteran of Red Cups

I am outraged by Starbucks. I can’t believe their marketing department didn’t make the cups red earlier.

Since I own mutual funds, I probably own some stock in Starbucks. At least, I assume I do. Since I want to retire someday, I want to see the stocks I own go up in value. Attracting people to your business usually makes your stock go up. (As long as they’re not looters). Therefore, I want as many legitimate customers as possible attracted to Starbucks, as well as all the other companies I allegedly own stock in.

Red cups have been attracting people for decades. How is Starbucks just catching on to that? I’m not sure about red paper cups like Starbucks has, but red Solo plastic cups bring people like moths to a flame. In college, you couldn’t keep me away from a place that had a sleeve of red Solo cups. Duh.

Apparently, though, I’m in the minority of people who are thrilled with Starbucks’ new red cup. I guess it used to have holiday designs on it or something? I have no idea, since I don’t drink coffee, and if I did, I wouldn’t drive somewhere to buy it for six dollars a cup from a “barista” with a pierced forehead and the audacity to have a tip jar. (But for those of you who do, please continue to do so, as long as I actually own stock in Starbucks... I should check that.)

At least one person somewhere -- either a customer, a shrewd Starbucks marketing genius, or a reporter – was “outraged” by Starbucks’ “war on Christmas” when the red cups without snowflakes were revealed. The internet has since exploded with outrage, and outrage against the outrage. The internet is fun.

Here’s the thing, America – you’re free. And especially today -- on Veterans Day – it’s very important to keep that in mind.

Starbucks is free to make their cup any color or colors they choose.

You are free to not like it.

They are free to put any or no designs on their cups.

You are free to go on the internet and complain about it. Even to be outraged by it.

The other Americans on the internet are free to be outraged by your outrage, and also to call you a snot-nosed whiny little yahoo.

You are free to be outraged by their outrage to your outrage.

You are free to maybe switch to decaf if you’re the type of person who’s prone to being outraged by things like the designs and colors of cups.

You are free to celebrate Christmas.

You are also free to celebrate Arbor Day, Kwanzaa, and Pan American Aviation Day if you want to.

You’re also free to not celebrate any of those holidays.

You’re free to buy coffee from anywhere they sell it.

There’s really no end to it. You are free to buy a clip-in man bun, which they apparently sell now.

And we, as Americans, are free to mercilessly ridicule buyers of clip-in man buns, as they so obviously deserve.

And as far as Starbucks goes, I’m free to tell you that if you were actually offended in some way by the cup decoration choices at a drink and cake chain, you should probably take up some sort of hobby that puts some meaning in your life.

We’re all free. Where did we get all this amazing freedom? It was brought to you (and bought for you, in many cases) by veterans.

So this Veterans Day, you red cup haters can be thankful for the freedom to take your mocha-frappa-latte business to Tully’s, or Peet’s, or Dutch Brothers, or Seattle’s Best, or straight to Juan Valdez if you can catch up to his mule.

And you remaining Starbucks customers can be thankful the red cup haters won’t be clogging up the line.

But above all else, don’t forget to be thankful for our veterans. If you see one, stop them and let them know you are one grateful, freedom-loving S.O.B. Maybe even buy them a coffee.

I’ll be thankful for veterans, and for red Solo cups.

And the freedom to (possibly) own stock in a company that charges you people six bucks for a red cup of something that you could make at home for six cents.

God bless America.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

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Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Red Solo Cup

Initially when I agreed to take on the role of Mr. Mom, I may have been lied to about how much work it is to take care of three young boys and one big house. Either that or I was just nodding my head while thinking about baseball. Tough to say.

The bottom line is, after a few weeks at the helm, the ship is taking on water and starting to drift off course.

“Why are you walking there? I just cleaned that!”

“Why are you eating again? I just fed you, and I just cleaned that.”

“Why are you wearing clothes again? I just washed clothes.”

“You want me to bathe them how often?”

“You want me to make them lunch every day? They just come home expecting more food!”

As I adjust to this wiping/rinsing/preparing/feeding/washing/wiping/rinsing endless circle of crumbs and stains, I am looking for places to trim the fat and lean out the engine, if you will. One area I noticed that was an easy place to gain some efficiency was cups. My wife has a kitchen cupboard filled with nothing but plastic children’s drink cups. Foolishly, it’s a low one, so the kids can get their own cups anytime they want. She probably thought this was saving her time by not having to help them get a drink. Boy was she wrong!

The first thing I noticed about my dishwasher loads was the entire top rack was nothing but plastic cups. I did some quick math and realized that each boy was probably using anywhere from 4 to 2000 cups per day, depending on how hot it was outside. To make matters even worse, plastic cups have that annoying habit of never fully drying in the dishwasher, storing little pools of water on their inverted bottoms, and raining it down all over the perfectly dry dishes below if you so much as look at the top rack wrong when you open the door. Why am I having to hand-dry all the dishes after they went through the automatic dry cycle? This is madness. This must end.

Easy solution. Each kid gets one cup with their name on it, and if they want a drink, they need to use their own personal cup. That should put an end to the former practice of filling a new cup with water, taking a sip, then throwing the cup over their shoulder and running away. At least, I assume that’s what they were doing based on the cup usage statistics and the water all over the floor near the refrigerator.

My wife and mother-in-law recently bought me a hard-plastic, insulated “red Solo cup” as a gag gift. It looks just like the famous white-on-the-inside, beer-from-the-tap-at-a-keg-party, 16-ounce red Solo cup, but it is super-sturdy and infinitely reusable. They found it at a big beverage store and thought it was funny, but I loved it. It’s a great cup. It’s insulated so it doesn’t sweat as much as a glass, and when I drink out of it, I feel like I’m at a party, so it puts me in a good mood. I instantly adopted it as my regular daily ice water cup.

When I made the decision to go to a one-cup-only system with the boys, the sturdy red Solo cup was a no-brainer. I immediately bought three more of them, and wrote their names in black Sharpie marker on the sides. I even wrote “Daddy” on mine to avoid ending up with warm milk in it and half-dissolved granola bar chunks stuck to the rim.

The boys adopted the new plan with ease, and even sing Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup” song occasionally. When they talk about them, they say, “redsolocup” as one word. Kids are cute. I could see nothing wrong with my new plan… until the other morning.

Grandpa and Grandma were visiting, and Grandpa’s evening drink is bourbon. When I came downstairs in the morning, sitting on the counter next to the refrigerator were four red Solo cups with names written on them in Sharpie, the remains of a 1.75-liter bottle of Jim Beam, a teddy bear, and an empty bag of tortilla chips.

Hmm…

As I was pondering the scene, in stumbles a sleepy-eyed seven-year-old kid in boxer shorts, munching on a tortilla chip, scratching himself, and singing, “Red Solo cup, I fill you up, let’s have a party, let’s have a party…”

I have what appears to be the aftermath of an elementary school frat party in my kitchen. That can’t be good.

As long as we can keep the Child Protective Services Department out of here, we should be OK. One thing is for sure, though; with Mr. Mom at the helm, my boys are going to have no trouble adjusting to life at college.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!