Starbucks began as a small coffee shop in Seattle in 1971 and has multiplied, like a virus, throughout the world. It is now impossible to walk down a street in Manhattan without passing a Starbucks store as Christine Hanson found out. After a long search for a cup of “non-corporate coffee,” Christine set up www.delocator.net to find an independent coffee seller in the area. Just type in your zip code and a fresh cup, and a friendly environment, are probably closer than you think.

Out shopping, Christine Hanson had time to kill while a friend tried on a couple of outfits. So she decided to grab a quick cup of coffee. But she didn’t want Starbucks.

Fast food drive through lanes are meant to save time but usually they are more of a headache than parking and waiting on line inside the restaurant. The only thing worse than waiting on line behind the indecisive person ahead of you and the impatient person in the car behind you is dealing with the oblivious teenager being paid minimum wage to take your order. One LLA reader became very irritated with having to wait so long for fast food and decided she wasn’t going to take it anymore.

This is a tale of a double drive-through annoyance. The first annoyance is that it seems that whenever I go through a fast-food drive-through and order two of the same type of sandwich, I always have to wait. The second annoyance is that I am then asked if I’d like to pull ahead and wait for them to bring my order out. One day at dinner time, my husband and I were in a hurry so we decided to go through a drive-through. We had the bad luck of each of us wanting the same sandwich. The young man at the window looked to be about 15 – 16 at most – and was probably new on the job. He dutifully asked, “If you’d like to pull ahead and wait, we’ll bring that out to you.” I replied, very calmly and courteously, “No, I wouldn’t like to pull ahead and wait. I’m in a hurry and that’s why I came through the drive-through.” A visible wave of panic crossed the young man’s face, and he whirled around and yelled into the kitchen, “She doesn’t want to wait! She wants her food, NOW!” I think I was as surprised at his reaction as he was at mine. I didn’t have to pull ahead, and in a few minutes, a bag containing two chicken sandwiches was in my hand.