From Starbucks to Bodega Coffee - An Unpredictable Security

I watch Law & Order: SVU - obsessively. I can't tell you if it's my love for NY, or the show itself. I do know, I get a little excited when I see SVU's characters holding one of those little blue and white coffee cups. There is something great about the experience of getting coffee from a Bodega, that Starbucks just can't beat. Last spring, when I lived in NYC, I was really broke. Starbucks was no longer a viable option and so I closed the door on corporate coffees and opened it to something interestingly independent. The whole experience of coffee purchased from a bodega is random, but it's the kind of experiences that always made my day. I was a regular at the one on the corner by my apartment. Some days my coffee was $.65 and other days it was $.75. I was never quite sure what it was going to be, so I was always prepared for the latter. The thing you need to know about a bodega is, more often than not, english is the second language of the majority of the staff, if not all. I only know english - Canadian english. It took me a few trips to learn that one of the guys who worked there, the one that most always prepared my coffee - didn't really speak english, like I presumed. He always responded with a nod or something; I think he understood, cream and sugar. Maybe. Cream is more Canadian, it seems Americans often say Half and Half. Though the amount of cream was always right, he also didn't quite get, "a little bit of sugar", or "one sugar", he just new "sugar" and estimated, (I am guessing) and put in, what he imagined I would want. It was never what I wanted. The thing about it though, was that, he was always so eager and happy, that I just could not be bothered, to care that my coffee was too sweet. Eventually, I started to like it. I think it was more about becoming a regular, having a place that was familiar - daily. I appreciated how nice the staff was ( i liked that it was always open, so there was always a safe place to go) - and most of all, I loved that it was $.65 and sometimes, $.75.