Really, How Much Must We Endure for a Decent Caramel Macchiato?

Deepai.org

By Fred Bruning

Feb. 8, 2026

Chatting online, suburban consumers reviewed distressing new evidence that, as per Mick Jagger, you can’t get no satisfaction – at least not all the time.

Someone had ordered coffee at a local Starbucks and baristas failed to call his name for pickup.

“Thoughts?” the aggrieved party asked.

Neighbors promptly engaged.

Baristas getting lazy?

Did you tap “add tip” button?

Sounds just like Starbucks.

Whatever happened to customer service?

I had an order that never came.

Should’ve asked for a free latte.

Be proactive!

Go somewhere else if you don’t like the service.

Panera!

Mickey D’s!

Whole Foods!

Dunkin’!

Make your own coffee!

I have never been a coffee drinker though my mother, Winnie, enjoyed cup after cup throughout the day, modest pleasure for a working-class housewife who complained little and, with good reason, expected not much.

Sometimes she brewed a pot but mostly – and this, I know, is entirely unacceptable in these yuppified, five-bucks-a-cup, only-the-best, life-is-short, I-deserve-it-don’t-I?, post-millennium days – it was Nescafé instant, splash of milk, that kept Mom going.

There she’d be, dusting, washing, mopping floors, scouring the tub (no shower at 619 69^th St., Bay Ridge, Brooklyn), hanging clothes on the line that stretched over a courtyard, from one side of our three-story building to the other, waiting for my father, Fred, to get home from delivering Bond Bread to delis and luncheonettes in Park Slope.

“Think I’ll have another,” Mom would say, stirring Nescafé into hot water and reaching for the milk bottle, Renken’s, big Brooklyn dairy. “Just sit for minute.”

Dad would arrive, worn out, joints aching, in his General Baking Co. uniform, brown trousers, Eisenhower jacket, and drop into an easy chair.

“Here you are, dear,” Mom would say, handing him a cup.

They’d kiss.

“Boy, phew, thanks. Join me?”

“Think I will,” Mom would say, making herself another.

At some point, when I was old enough, Mom went to work as a secretary at a brokerage firm, 120 Broadway, Equitable Building.

This was an excellent career choice for a coffee fanatic because Chock full o’ Nuts was just across the street – cup, light, please, 15 cents, one whole wheat donut – and also a little concession cart in the Equitable lobby where a pot always was ready. Mom sometimes helped at the switchboard with operators, Flo and Bea, and almost anytime you could see them working hard, three solid citizens, coffee containers nearby.

Toward the end of her life, Mom, 91, spending more time at our house, short-term memory fading, had trouble keeping count.

“Think I’ll have a cup of coffee,” Mom, at the kitchen table, would announce to Wink, my wife.

“Um, Mom, you just had one. Maybe wait a little while?”

“Did I, dear? I don’t think so. Please, I’d like a cup.”

There was no Starbucks at that point, of course, no Sugar Cookie lattes, or Caffè Mistos or Peppermint White Chocolate Mochas, any of which would have caused Mom to marvel, “oh, my,” even before she saw the prices.

If you had mentioned “barista,” Mom might have thought you were talking about the fellow who delivered coal to my grandmother downstairs or maybe a character in a James Cagney movie.

Coffee concoctions worth more than a month’s subway tokens, 1955?

“Oh, come awwn,” Winnie would say.

Retreating into yesteryear, what’s the point?

So Mom preferred Nescafé and good, old Chock full o’ Nuts, light, no sugar.

Now it’s Starbucks and Caramel Macchiato and Blond Vanilla Latte.

Winnie and Fred’s generation had been through a lot – two world wars, Great Depression.

Their money didn’t amount to much.

They lived small – small but happy.

As far as I can remember, they complained only if the heat didn’t come up or Pastor Werner Jentsch, St. John’s Lutheran, Prospect Avenue, went a few minutes over in his sermon about annual pledges.

We’ve come a long way, many respects.

Healthier, generally, more wherewithal, modern miracles, incredible.

Just think about Google. Robotic surgery. iPhones. Or streaming. Winky and I have more British crime caper movies to watch than evenings available.

Something, all of it.

Yowza, no question.

If only those baristas would get their act together.

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive