Caribou Coffee

I come to sing the praises of Caribou Coffee. I got hooked on the stuff way back when I was making regular trips to the Detroit metro area. I spent many evenings in Royal Oak sipping a Caribou Turtle Mocha and watching the world go by. At that time (geez, a whole decade ago) Caribou Coffee had stores in Minnesota and Michigan. A few years later, they had expanded to Ohio and I was stopping by the Worthington store as often as humanly possible -- a long trip from Central Pennsylvania, but hey, I had a brother in the Columbus area and a few business reasons to be there, so I could justify the seven-hour drive to get a good mocha. Yesterday, on a pilgrimage to the Wegman's destination store in Hunt Valley, Maryland, I discovered that Caribou has at long last spread to my neck of the woods! Hurray!

So why am I posting this here, in my Rant Blog?

Because there's a grand total of, like, five parking spaces in front of the damn store. I circled like a vulture for 15 minutes, hoping that somebody would get his/her car out of my Caribou space. But no. Everyone was blissfully sitting around, drinking Turtle Mochas, watching the world go by. Sure, I could've parked a half-mile away if it were just me. But with two little kids in the car, I need Caribou to have: (a) sufficient spaces in front so I can drag my kids in with me to get a tasty mocha; or (b) a frickin' frackin' drive-through window.

I drove away without a delicious Caribou drink. Dammit.