Column: Seeing red for the holidays

True story (aren’t mine always?):

I’m at Starbucks the other day and I think to myself, “What festive cups they have!” as I spy the bright red containers. Now, I have to preface this by saying I’m not a coffee drinker, at least not the hot stuff. I’ll occasionally get, let me say it the correct way, a venti iced vanilla coffee with cream. Outside of knowing the convention of ordering, I’m pretty ignorant about java. All I know about arabica and Sumatra is that they are two words fun to say.

I visit Starbucks maybe 10 times a year. I get my iced coffee (which comes in a clear, plastic cup) and go my merry way.

A couple days later, I hear a hubbub about Starbucks cups and I’m thinking it is because they have busted out the holiday versions TOO SOON!

Nope.

Apparently, some members of the caffeinated Christian world are shaking their fists at the coffeehouse’s audacity to not have Christmas symbols on their cups. Inexperienced in both the nuances of coffee and Internet rage, I feel like an outsider. How did I leave with a warm, fuzzy feeling, humming a Christmas carol with my joe on ice, while the rest of my hyperactive peers are foaming at the mouth like a piping hot espresso?

My gut tells me it is because there are a lot of judgmental morons out there. Yes, that seems harsh, but how else should one characterize people who are up in arms about something as silly as a red cup? Before you start pointing a sharpened pitchfork tine in my direction, keep in mind that I’ve written columns in this very paper about the absurdity of being hacked off when somebody says “Merry Christmas!” instead of the supposedly PC “Happy Holidays!”

My guess is that some people just like to be hacked off.

Part of me wonders what would happen if the effort and “brainpower” it takes to become so angry at inconsequential things was actually directed at worthwhile causes. Could we solve at least some of the world’s problems? But then I look at the pool of idiots complaining about these things and I’d fear they’d just slip and fall over their own drool and create a human pileup.

Have we really arrived at the point where citizens are up in arms over something a company didn’t do to mark the holiday season? Maybe I should be outraged because I went to Target and they didn’t give me a free gift on Black Friday last year. I deserved it for standing in a line at 5 a.m., right? Maybe I should get angry at Food Lion for not having any Christmas colors in their logo. Blue and white? Get some red and green in there, you heathens!

Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Think about that the next time you start whining about a lack of snowmen and reindeer on a stupid cup.

This story was originally published November 16, 2015 at 11:40 AM with the headline "Column: Seeing red for the holidays."