Starbucks Doesn’t Think I’m Sexy (III)

The phone rings this afternoon. Robin answers it and hands it to me.

“It’s for you.”

“Who is it?”

“Starbucks.”

I take the phone and spend several minutes talking to a very nice woman whose job, I can only imagine, must be that of professional apologizer. The very cadences of her voice begged forgiveness for intruding on my valuable time, while simultaneously expressing the gratitude that a multinational corporation could never speak in its own person. I was informed by this lovely, disarming voice that my comments on the Starbucks Asian-man-turns-white commercial had been duly passed on to the appropriate people and would be taken into consideration for the future.

That was very nice of them, I said. But that meant the commercials were still running, unaltered?

Well, she confessed, yes, that was true, but she assured me that future generations of Starbucks marketers would benefit from my wisdom.

She also told me, in what was an almost embarrassed aside, that some Asian Americans in fact liked this commercial.

Robin suggested that they should have at least sent me a case of free Frappuccinos. You know. To see if they work.