Mary, Jackie and Delmar

When Tom and Betsy and I (and sometimes Patrick) go for coffee, we go to Starbucks. Where else would we go? There we are greeted by our Starbucks friends. Mary, who is less than half our age, calls us "baby." "Hi baby, how are ya today?" If one of us goes for coffee without the others, Mary will rat that person out. While less demonstrative, Jackie was named manager of the quarter for the downtown area, and always greets us with a smile. Delmar has our orders ready almost before we walk in the door.

A Starbucks friend learns your name and your drink. That's why when you make a Starbucks friend you never throw them a change up, you always order the same thing. If you want something different, you go to a different Starbucks. You tip your Starbucks friends - not some left over change coins, but paper money. You use your auto-reload shareholders card to buy the drink, but you tip well, at least once each week.

Our Starbucks is very small and located two blocks from our building's entrance and it is a point of pride with Tom and me (Patrick doesn't get it yet) to go in shirt sleeves no matter what the weather or temperature. There is a big new Starbucks opening up across the street from our building entrance, but I don't think we will abandon our Starbucks friends.

Memorable Starbucks friends I have known:

• Bitsy - at my last job, before everyone decided to go to Joelle's, we followed Bitsy to two different Starbucks stores, we liked her so much.
• Nancy - for several years I spent one or two days each week in Portland, Oregon. Nancy managed the store on SW Washington and never forgot my quad grande nonfat latte which is my I'm travelling on business and need something a little more expensive drink.

P.S. The cups in my part of the US tend to leak from the rim at the seam.. This was not a problem on the west coast, so I assume that some union is to blame.