Catch us at the coffee shop and we’ll let you in on the topic of the day

Don Kirkland

Don Kirkland

The coffee klatch that seems to have materialized among our little circle of friends at the Starbucks on Warner Road in Tempe over the past few years has gone into a bit of a slump since Jack, one of our members, and his wife Mary took off for their annual vacation pilgrimage to somewhere around Greenville in rural Michigan.

I’ll point the area out on my trusty Rand McNally map if you ask, but I hope you don’t — that little pinpoint seems to get smaller every year.

So, yeah, we’ve been through this before, and the camaraderie among us is as strong as ever.

We still convene for coffee (and freebie muffins if our collaborator Christine shows up) and somehow manage to have no trouble finding topics to discuss, from the mundane to the, well — now that I think about it — almost always mundane.

I’m not sure, really, how topics come up. We definitely don’t plan them ahead of time.

So when we launch into a subject like tips, as we did the other day — when, where, why (and why not) to leave them at your nearby coffee hangout — you can be sure that we’ve found something to keep us talking for a good hour.

And then we go home.

So what would you like to know about tips? Do you always leave something in the little jar that sits next to the credit card do-thingy? Do you employ some predetermined rule of tipping that covers a range of variables?

From my standpoint, I almost always tip. It’s my way of saying thanks to the counter staff for recognizing us when we come in, for having a welcoming smile, even for sometimes having our grande iced mochas ready — foamy whipped topping pushing its way through that big hole in the rounded cover — before we ever get to the counter.

And of course the little hand-written love note that Sbux’s corporate masters have ordered be written with a Sharpie on each cup by each barista in the 3,000-plus stores in more than 80 countries around the world.

I got a smiley face drawn by edict on my most recent order, but the messaging options are up to each barista. Nothing to complain about there, right?

While I’m sure that the hastily scribbled notes seem like a great idea to some of the newer staff, I’m guessing others see the ritual as a minor intrusion into a presumably already demanding routine.

To us, who would object to receiving a little love from any of the baristas on the cup of Matcha Green Tea they just set on the counter for us?

If you feel as I do about all this, I hear that Starbucks provides a website to add your suggestion to the seemingly unending collection of (heartfelt? well, maybe) sentiment to what’s already available: “Seize the Day;” “You’re Amazing;” “Sounds Groovy;” “Enjoy.”

Catch us at the Starbucks on Warner Road almost any day and we’ll let you in on the topic of the day.

Sounds groovy, huh?

Don Kirkland is publisher of the Wrangler News Independent. Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines at https://www.yourvalley.net/civility-checklist.