How the Rich Get Richer

I saw a tastefully turned-out woman with a Prada handbag and perfect hair at Starbucks.I wasn't trying to 'see' her but she was lingering at my elbow as we both stood at the small station all Starbucks storefronts have. This is the place where management provides straws and swizzle sticks, napkins and a modest range of 'enhancers', from cinnamon to cocoa powder, as well as the usual range of choices in the general cream and sugar category. I felt I was holding her up, the way she lingered idly beside me and so I muttered an apology for not doing a speedier job of dribbling cream into my coffee from the tall cool carafe that stands beside the other tall cool carafes that hold the lowfat milk and the regular milk. I thought probably she needed access to the cream too.But when I stepped back, my own iced coffee enhanced to my liking, I saw more: She did treat her own coffee with cream, and Splenda, too; but then she reached into the mini-bin that held the sweetener in the familiar pale-yellow packets, closed her fingers around a good dozen of them and slipped them quick into that slim Prada purse.Maybe Starbucks can handle this kind of 'shrinkage' as they call stealing in the retail world, but it still made me shake my head.It also made me think I maybe don't belong in a coffee shop where the customers have Prada purses. It made me think I should maybe dump that high-priced decaf espresso and walk right over to my old haunt Dunkin' Donuts up Main Street a ways.Sure, they keep the Splenda behind the counter so you have to ask for it a packet at a time, but things just feel more HONEST there. Plus at Dunkin' you're far more likely to be greeted with a "Hey, how's it goin'?"  which I, for one, will take any day over a "What may I serve you?"