Cream and Sugar
The Andersons. Can a cup of Maxwell House be far away?
When I was a boy, there were only one type of coffee and two true ways to drink it–black or light (which was shorthand for cream and sugar at any nearby Dunkin Donuts shop). My Dad, who drank more coffee than I thought humanly possible, liked his cup extra light. In most restaurants, it cost about a dime, and it was a very utilitarian. Essentially, you drank it for one of two reasons–to keep warm or to keep awake.
But then came Starbucks, and it found a way to inject greater value into this humble drink. It created different “beverages” and developed demand around coffee beans from new exotic locales. It institutionalized its own coffeehouse experience as a place to meet and socialize. It encouraged its customers to indulge themselves from time to time.
Now people expect a little more from their coffee. Recently, I bought my wife for Mother’s Day a “K-cup” coffee machine , which produces high quality, single cups of java. When Jim and Margaret Anderson drank their freshly brewed cups of Maxwell House every morning on the original Father Knows Best radio show, they only spent pennies per drink. It doesn’t matter that K-cups are about fifty times more expensive; the quality, variety, and convenience they offer my wife trumps my natural sense of frugality.
Once we establish excellence in even the most basic of commodities, it can be very difficult to avoid the price tag that comes along with it. And ironically, the cost difference between what we might perceive to be great and what we consider ordinary quickly shrinks. After all, how many diners still sell coffee for a dime? Why settle for cream and sugar when a gingerbread double latte beckons instead.
Life is often about placing value into the things that truly matter and gladly becoming captive to the standards we set for ourselves.
