Tim Horton's Coffee

I hate coffee - I'm proud to admit that I am one of the few people in our culture who does not start the day with caffeine and I ridicule the drive-thru lineups at Tim Horton's (I counted 10 cars in line at about 850 this morning - my record is 13, scoff scoff). I tried to drink coffee once in University after staying up all night at a residence party, but it was awful (is 7-11 coffee typically awful? I don't know.) and I have never drank a cup again. Every once in a while I try Scott's coffee, but it's just a reminder that the stuff is bad, bad, bad.

(As a side note - I have tried iced coffee slushes that are so loaded with cream and sugar that of course they taste good, but I'm too cheap to get addicted to those and I don't want to waste the calories only to end up climbing the walls as I try to fall asleep later!).

So how can I explain the fact that, since a Tim Horton's opened in Devon, I have tried Scott's coffee a couple of times (large triple triples - gah!), and my brain has actually thought, "Hey, I could drink this stuff!". Nevermind the cream and sugar calories, the loaded caffeine, the rumours of msg in the coffee (unsubstantiated, of course), my brain still seems to want a Tim Horton's Coffee. It doesn't want a Mac's coffee or a Fas Gas coffee, but hey, if I was seen drinking a Tim Horton's coffee, I'd finally be one of the cool kids!

OH PLEASE!

It is amazing what the advertising juggernaut has done to our psyches, including my logical coffee-hating psyche, to the point where I would actually consider purchasing a coffee at Tim Horton's. I can somewhat understand the drive-thru lineups now, although come on people, half the time there are five or ten cars in the drive-thru and no one in the restaurant!!

If this is a small example of the effect of advertising on our purchasing power, it's no wonder we've become a must-have-it-now-who-cares-about-the-cost society. It's no wonder we're riddled in debt and no one really seems to care if they dig their way out. After all, the government will bail us out, right?

Do we even have a chance?