First World Problems

It's official - I am a bad man.

It's extremely cold, and wet this morning.  I woke up early, watched an episode of Portlandia on Netflix on my iPad in bed, then bundled up and drove to Starbucks for coffee.

There was a line of about 10 cars in front me in the drive-through (can't make myself type "thru"), so I waited patiently, singing along to songs that I streamed from my iPhone through the Veloster's speakers via bluetooth while the interior of the car warmed up.

After a short wait it became my turn to order.  I placed my order for a venti decaf non-fat no-whip but yes molasses drizzle gingerbread latte and moved up in line.  When I got to the window I had my Starbucks app queued up on my iPhone and ready for the cashier to scan my virtual personalized Starbucks gold card.

I held out my iPhone to be scanned and the cashier handed me my drink and told me the gentleman in the car in front of me had paid for my drink.  That was unexpected, so while the cashier looked at me expectantly I said "Oh." and then "Well, thank you." and then drove off.

My thoughts while driving away were first about motive, as in that was nice but what drives someone to do it.  They were mostly self-centered:  Was it someone I knew, did he look in the rearview mirror and think I was attractive and that was his way of flirting, did he see that I was enjoying my music and my chipper mood inspired him to make my day a little brighter, or was he a mindless sheep who saw a tv commercial or an inane blog re-post ("Re-post this if you heart puppies" or "Re-post this if war makes you sad" or "Let's get 100,000 likes to show our support for people born with webbed feet - Webbies are people too" or some other silly message about paying it forward?

Then the guilt set in about me just driving away and not paying for the next person in line.  Then I started to resent the kind, anonymous stranger for causing me to feel guilty and giving me too much to think about instead of just being able to enjoy my $5 coffee and my bluetooth-streaming iPhone music.

Then I wrote a sorta jokey, sort of serious blog post about possessions, elitism and selfishness, and re-reading it now I see it hits too close to home for comfort and makes me burn in shame all over again.  I am a bad man.

Thank you kind stranger, whoever you are and whatever your motivations were.  The coffee was delicious.