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Comment By Jeff Vrabel More Content Now MailTribune.com By Jeff Vrabel More Content Now Posted Dec. 8, 2014 at 7:51 AM Updated Dec 8, 2014 at 9:32 AM By Jeff Vrabel More Content Now Posted Dec. 8, 2014 at 7:51 AM Updated Dec 8, 2014 at 9:32 AM » Social News Here’s my 10-year-old on this “Starbucks for Life” promotion, where you can win free coffee until the hour of your death and possibly beyond: “I don’t know about this. What do you do when you get tired of Starbucks?” The thing is, this never occurred to me. Get tired? Of coffee? Actually reach some physical point where my body rejects and recoils at the idea of free caffeination? Can such a thing exist in science, in this world? And if so, what kind of nightmarish half-life would that be? Do I want to live in a world where I can get tired of coffee? There was a lot going on in my 10-year-old’s snarky little aside is what I’m saying. See, I work from home, so in order to occasionally shake up my domestic routine, I relocate to coffee shops, where I can shift my routine from sitting by myself at home to sitting by myself around other people and listen to classic, time-honored Christmas music remixed by 23-year-old DJs who want to introduce blurps and buzz noises to Vince Guaraldi songs. I don’t go to coffee shops to “interact with others” — last week, for instance, I debated for 30 minutes whether I could ask to sit at a table with somebody else for the sole purpose of using their electrical outlet without going to the inconvenience of actually talking to them, which is something in which I had zero interest. I did this until the last fragile 8 percent of my laptop battery, when panic got the best of me and I asked that very thing, which was, incidentally, a HUGE MISTAKE, because I spent the next two hours being asked questions about what I did, what I was writing, whether my salted caramel mocha was good and whether I liked my MacBook as much as THIS guy liked his MacBook, which is a short lively microcosm of why I don’t talk to people at the coffee shop, or, if I can help it, anywhere. So yeah, the interaction at coffee shops I can give or take (mostly take). But the coffee, well, now we’ve got ourselves a deal. Free coffee. For life. I mean, the savings alone would make it so I could pretty much buy a yacht or a major fossil-fuel company by like, 2019. But that got me thinking about how this promotion actually works: Free coffee? FOR LIFE? I’ve never done ANYTHING for life! Seriously, I don’t think I’ve lived in a place longer than like four years. Frankly the prospect of having something settled, decided, planned for that long is deeply, wildly unsettling. For life. Like, I could just drink salted caramel mochas here until I die. Until I actually die. And not to be alarmist about it, but I’m starting to hit numbers where that mortality business is creeping into deeply unrelated coffee-based sweepstakes. Will I even like coffee for another 40 or 50 years? Will my doctors allow it? What if I’m suddenly denied caffeination? What if science discovers in three years that coffee facilitates large noses in middle-aged Slovak guys? I mean, I’m not just gonna NOT use the free coffee, because if my family has taught me anything, it’s not to turn down free stuff. (I mean, every time I throw out an expired Bed Bath & Beyond coupon, I die a little.) It’s starting to seem like a burden, is what I’m saying. Which I’m thinking about, hard, the whole time I’m signing up for this. Jeff Vrabel needs to finish up this column before his laptop battery dies. He can be reached at jeffvrabel.com and followed at facebook.com/jeffvrabelwriter . By Jeff Vrabel More Content Now MailTribune.com By Jeff Vrabel More Content Now Posted Dec. 8, 2014 at 7:51 AM Updated Dec 8, 2014 at 9:32 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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