Damn you, Starbucks, for introducing me to the caramel macchiato. Starbucks has led me around by the nose, searching for that drive-thru to plunk down my $5 or more, desperate for the brew. While I’m at it, damn you Apple, for making products that can guide me to Starbucks.

It’s the wanting that I’m cursing you for. If I didn’t know what it was, if I had never tasted one, it wouldn’t matter. By creating their sweet abominations of coffee, Starbucks has trapped me. I want it. It makes no difference that it’s a momentary pleasure. It’s like fish and chips. You get it once, and you love it, and then you go back to the same place hoping it’s going to taste the same, and for whatever reason, whether it’s the company you’re with, or the fryer oil, or the time it took to get it, that fish and chips doesn’t turn out the same. Any human being will still remember that one perfect time, and will search for it forever, no matter how many lesser batches of fried cod trollop down our throats.

It is the triumph of capitalism. Create a product I am convinced I want, and then it’s not even the product at all. It’s the feeling it gives me. It’s the memories it triggers of other times, of the summer day when my beautiful wife and I rode our bikes to get a frappucino. It’s the treats we got on vacation. It’s the days I went for one when nothing else would get me motivated to write.

Damn you, Starbucks, for being good.