Call Me Pope Fivebucks

I have experienced my first miracle.  It is on par with other miracles that have big holidays carved out of our busy calendars.  And it all started at Fivebucks.  You know, the coffee place that sells a coffee cup large enough to hold the contents of an entire bottle of wine.  That one.  You also can't get a coffee for less that five bucks...hence the name.

I guess it started there, but the miracle happened on the ride home.  I had ordered a 'tall' coffee, which is really the smallest.  I think there was such a surplus of small cups from other fast food places from when they actually served drinks in small cups, that Fivebucks collected them all to sell us expensive, little coffees.  Seriously.  Do you remember the 'small' frosty?  It was the size of a cone cup.  I think you would get approximately 3.4 spoonfuls of aerated chocolate iced spread before it was a weird puddle of congealed candy skin.  Now the small frosty is at least a 40 oz.  I think that Fivebucks saw this surplus as a way to save the world.  Kind of like the Army/Navy surplus stores.  One day the empty artillery shell that decorates my candelabra will save my life, I know it.

Some mail clerk at Fivebucks was probably high as a kite one day when she had an epiphany.  I bet we could get these hosers to buy anything with the Fivebucks logo on it, she said to herself.  So she wrote up a proposal.  Because they are in the North West, and being a stoned hippie love child is part of their birth rite, she added a touching, save the world, addition.  Here it is, taken out of context...

...and to that, we need to prepare our customers.  As consumers, they will realize that by donating to the good cause of health and prosperity, which is the Fivebucks way, they become stewards of this great company.  Donations, as defined by the cost of the coffee, and the cost of sacrifice by the consumer that knowingly has purchased less than the share that they are entitled to, can be used as a tax deductible benefit to this benefactor.  Namely, Fivebucks...

So she was able to make the case for the small cup being business friendly at the same time as being consumer and environmentally unfriendly, without looking unfriendly.  But it was eloquent, so they loved it. And since the North West was built from recycled gum and broken marbles (it does twinkle a lot up there), the thought of recycling all of the now homeless 'small' cups from decades ago was perfect.  Now we have a small, tall coffee cup that holds enough coffee to get you out the door before you need to return for a refill. 

And as it happens with small tall cups of coffee, my apprehension set in immediately that I would not have enough to get me through the drive home, and in turn, what little I did have left would get cold before I got to the first traffic light.  

But as I drove on, the cup remained full enough to keep my anxiety at bay.  And the warmth tickled my tongue with each lovely sip.  It seemed that the cup held more than enough.  I began to gulp with wild abandon.  I dared to peer into the tiny hole that slushed out my life blood.  Brown splashes twinkled back at me.  I never saw the dreaded bottom of the cup!

I started to realize that I was experiencing something out of this world.  Like the people that say the hairs on the back of their neck stood at attention right before they were hit by lightning, I felt that something extraordinary was happening.  I had a bottomless cup of coffee that never got cold!  Is this what the Maccabees experienced?  

Halfway home now!  And still, I had coffee!  And Hot!

I was getting giddy... like those butterflies that twiddle in your belly before the first day of a new job.  This was the start of something wonderful!  Maybe I'll win the lottery today?!  Maybe I'll get that job I've been wondering about?!  Today, the kids will not fight!  It was a sign...the planets were aligning and they were doing it right before my eyes!!!  It was about this time when I started thinking of all the implications associated with what was turning out to be a real live miracle.  First and foremost, I'm only in need of two more in my lifetime in order to become a Saint.  I know that most of the Saints were canonized after they died, but can I preemptively pick my Saint name? The next most pressing issue would be the holiday.  What should it be named?  Should it be world wide, or national?  How many days off of school should it warrant?  The enormity of what was happening began to pulse through me.

Turning into the driveway now, and still!  I can feel the weight in the cup, it is not empty!  Gathering my things, I stepped out of the car like I was the victor coming out of the Trojan Horse.  The world was my oyster!  Tipping up the cup to revel in this miracle, to feel one with the universe.  A feeling that only something so sublime like coffee can bring.  Confidence washed over me!  Tasting my future!!!

... it was cold.