Week 41

I am not the most aggressive consumer in the world. Maybe I just avoid conflict, but after a certain point in the consumer-commercial relationship I accept the situation and turn my attention elsewhere. Not Darien. She is the junkyard dog of consumers. If she thinks she has a case, she is going to nip you to death over it.

This is why we just received our fourth espresso machine from Starbucks. (Can I say that name here?) It is not like we received defective products and had to keep returning them. This has been going on for years. It is the best machine we have ever owned. Combined with our burr grinder and mail order coffee from Porto Rico in New York (can I say that name here?) it makes an excellent espresso. We use ours at least twice a day, often four or five, and if we have visitors even more. Maybe that is the problem, since they seem to fail right before they hit the end of their two-year warranty life. Darien, God bless her, gets on Starbucks's case and pesters them until they send us a new one. The last one even had passed its warranty by five weeks or so and she still convinced them to send us a new one. They told her this is the last time they are going to send us a replacement. I think they say that just because they aren't manufactured anymore.

I don't know if Starbucks is the most service-oriented company in the world, or if in marrying Darien I latched on to the most aggressive consumer advocate walking the planet. I suspect the latter. (Can I say that name here?)

We need to talk.