Tim Hortons

Dear Jessica Brennan
What in the name of all things glorious and free is going on at Tim Hortons?!
Every morning I go through the drive-thru and the speaking-box thing says the same words, “Hi this is Margaret, would you like to try our new dark roast coffee today?” and I reply with exactly the same answer, a polite, “No thank you, I would like an extra large coffee regular and a large steeped tea with three milk”.
When I say coffee, I mean Tim Hortons coffee, not the new “dark roast, can we try to compete with Starbucks and that pesky McDonalds that wins every blind taste test” coffee.
Then she – the metal box called Margaret, asks me again the next day, and again, and again. I don’t know that metal-box Margaret is built on as bright a platform as Siri who now can anticipate my every need, so I try to be nice but what I want to say is, “Margaret, listen to me very carefully and perhaps jot this down. No, I don’t want your dark roast coffee, not today, not tomorrow, or ever. Please stop asking me. In case you’re worried I can assure you if I change my mind at a later date, I will feel free to roll down my window, (as opposed to rolling up my rim) and speak-up about it, into the carbon monoxide filled abyss we call convenience.”
But I don’t say that, and after Margaret has asked me if I want a holiday pumpkin spice something or other, and a festive sausage breakfast biscuit, she then asks me, (a little embarrassed), for a huge favour…to check that the total is right on the screen.
What the..?! Poor Margaret! Did they take the screens away inside? I was sure that if she punched an order in, there would be something that came up and showed her all the letters and numbers that go together completing the cost of the equation of dripping coffee and steeping tea, but alas, Margaret doesn’t know if the computer is adding things up at all, or if I’ve just been left out there in my car with an order that says 3 apple fritters, a candy-cane latte and a dozen cherry danishes. After so many years in a row though, even I know, that if the total isn’t $3.79, (now $3.80 with the demise of the beloved penny), the cream has fallen out of the Boston, and something has gone horribly wrong.
Oh but wait, it won’t say $3.79 for long, why? Because, next week Tim Hortons is raising the prices by a whopping ten cents a cup. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that ten cents is a small amount of money to pay for the right to drink coffee from the geyser of Canada’s greatest maple dipped tourist attraction. I’m sure the coffee at Banff and Niagara Falls is at least that much, and of course this letter to you my Dear Jessica, makes me feel shamefully unpatriotic, by virtue of the fact that the company is Canada’s favourite Barista. I mean 3.12 billion dollars in revenue in 2012 is pretty impressive when you break that out per coffee bean, but clearly it isn’t enough, so let’s raise those prices! Tim Hortons says it’s because the price of coffee has gone up, yet this doesn’t explain the rise also occurring on every perfectly round timbit and on all non-Ontario breakfast sandwiches which only have coffee in them if Margaret’s co-worker slops all over them while she’s handing the bag through the window. I’m kidding, Margaret’s co-worker is much more conscientious than that.
I have an idea. Remember a couple of years ago when they changed their sizes so that a small was now a medium and a medium was a large and a large was an extra large and the new extra large was the size of a Yorkshire welly? Well, what if we all went back to buying those slightly, smaller sizes like we used to? We could beat them at their own game. But we won’t because we love Tim Hortons, our country and hockey. It’s as simple as that.
Let me know what you think of a suggestion I have for our great and much-adored Tims that could solve a lot of problems, anxiety and misunderstanding all at once. Everyone would be happy, because I know beyond the shadow of a fritter, I could get Canadians to willingly pay the extra dime per cup if it could go into a coffee-can so poor Margaret could get a monitor for her computer.
Love Mum xo
Sign Margaret’s petition below by hitting “like” and I’ll send it all off to them in a paper cup with the image of a cozy vintage sweater on it.