A Questionable Reputation

“I know you are good for it,” she attested, affixing the unearned stamp to my coffee card. It’s a promotion underway at the coffee shop nearby that invites the accumulation of weekly stamps – obtained with a purchase – certifying a broad sampling of their various offerings. The incentive is a free pound of coffee at the end of these patiently imbibed weeks – no trivial matter for a guy who consumes as much fruit of the bean as I – and out of town last week I had missed a box. The next-to-last. Perilously close to a caffeinated stillbirth after a virtual trimester of progress. “I know you are good for it,” she said without so much as a second thought.

Sipping now in my office, I am pondering the implications of earning credit in the neighborhood coffee shop. Admittedly, it’s not a terrible risk on their part. This isn’t, after all, Goldman Sachs and I’m not buying derivatives. It’s a $2 cup ‘a Jo. And they know my name. They feel comfortable enough in our familiarity to offer routine commentary on my bowtie of the day. They know where to find me. And they are right: having assiduously cultivated my addiction, they know I’ll be back. There is precious little chance I’ll suddenly go cold turkey. I am, indeed, “good for it.”

Still, it is with a profound mixture of relational satisfaction at knowing and being known in the neighborhood, and discomfort at having such a blatant extravagance so nakedly exposed that I take another sip; savoring the ambivalence.

It could be worse, I suppose.  At least it's not the good folks at Krispy Kreme extending me credit.