The Spirit of Christmas and Caffeine

My husband takes me out on a coffee date after church every Sunday. Quite often, it's about the only way he can con me into going to church. Now some avid church-goers and super duper Christians may be offended by my ambivalence toward attending church every single Sunday. But I'll unabashedly admit that after a week of working with 650+ kids, teaching ten classes a day, putting on programs every few weeks, conducting a 60-member children's choir, performing in or rehearsing for whatever project I may have going on at the time, sometimes the last thing I want to do is spend yet another day surrounded by people. So Dan bribes me with caffeine.

Because our service ends by 9:30, our coffee date is usually early enough in the day that we spend it with church avoiders and non-church goers, so the former preacher's kid in me feels slightly and delightfully heathen-ish.

Last week, we didn't go to our regular Tully's haunt where the two baristas make our typical fare as soon as they see us walk in the door. We had to run an errand near a Starbucks, an easy feat since there is a Starbucks on every corner as the saying goes.

As we arrived at the coffee shop, Dan tried to pull into a parking spot but another car darted in front of us from the other direction. Dan may have grumbled a bit under his breath, but I was too busy daydreaming about which holiday drink I would try that day. (Come on, coffee drinkers, you know you mourn the loss of your Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Peppermint Mochas at the end of the season.)

As we entered the busy shop, Dan muttered, "Now I remember why I like Tully's better. Less people."

The gentleman standing in line ahead of us turned around.

"Did I just steal your spot out there?" he asked.

It took me a minute to register to what he was referring. He was the one who had pulled into the parking spot in front of Dan.

"No, it was fine."

"I hate it when people drive like a**holes. And then to think I just did that. I'm really sorry."

"That's okay. Just the fact that you're so conscientious about it proves that you're not an 'a**hole,'" I said.

The woman with him in line laughed, "No, he still is."

"Anyway, it's no problem," I told them. "We didn't think anything about it."

"Well, I'm really sorry," he said again.

A couple of minutes later, while Dan and I were ordering our drinks, the gentleman who called himself an "a**hole" handed the barista a gift card and said, "Would you put this toward these guys' order? Thanks!" And he hurried away before Dan and I could thank him.

I started to wonder, as I watched the man and woman speed away, if I - the reluctant church-goer - would have admitted that I was in a car that had cut someone off, much less pay the person's coffee bill, had the situation been reversed. Then I wondered - not without cynicism - whether any of those often maniacal drivers who so proudly display Christian fishes on their back bumpers would have done the same thing.

"Did you just get an anonymous donation?" a customer asked us as we waited at the counter for our coffee.

"I think we did."

"That was a nice Christmas gift," the man said.

"Yeah, it was."

Now, we could have afforded our own coffee, and a latte is probably the most superfluous and overpriced product in the world; but every once in a while it encourages my faith in humanity to be on the receiving end of a little Christmas charity.

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