Starsucks Coffee.

"Well, better make it quick kiddo. In five minutes, this place is becoming a Starbucks."
--"The Simpsons," episode 3G04, "Simpson Tide"

You know, I try not to be one of those liberals that's all anti-corporation, all the time. Sure, corporations are ruining America, removing competition, sacrificing the pension plans of their retirees, offering us all as sacrifices to their shareholder gods.

But, with so much else to be outraged about in the world, I haven't really had time to rail against corporate America. Until now.

Everyone always holds Starbucks as the prototype of the ruthless, heartless, mean-spirited, profit-obsessed corporation. And I never really understood why. Until now.

There's a wonderful little coffee shop called Lucy's Coffee & Tea across the street from where I work. Lucy has been in that location for thirteen years, and she's a fixture here in the university and medical communities. Anyone who has taken classes or worked at UAB since 1993 knows Lucy, particularly those of us who work on the research end of campus.

She serves coffee, tea, sandwiches, bagels, muffins, cookies, brownies, etc. The interior of her shop is filled with funky, garage-sale furniture, there's cool art on the walls, alternative music playing on the speakers. For the last couple of years, she's also offered free wireless Internet; so a lot of UAB doctors, graduate students, and other researchers use Lucy's as sort of a remote office.

Now, guess who's moving in right next door? You guessed it, Starbucks.

Up until about five years ago, there wasn't a single Starbucks in all of Birmingham. In fact, the only one in the state of Alabama was in the student union in Tuscaloosa. But of course, when Starbucks moves to town, they're kind of like rats -- they take over.

So, within a half-mile radius of this soon-to-open Starbucks, there are two other locations; a store in the Five Points area, just up 20th Street; and a brand-new full-size Starbucks inside UAB Hospital. They also run a small coffee kiosk in another part of the hospital; something that Lucy used to do until Starbucks came to down.

Less than three miles away, there are two more Starbucks locations, in Mountain Brook. There's also a rumor that they plan to build a shop inside the VA Hospital, which would be approximately 2.5 BLOCKS from this new store.

Why? Why did they need to build another fucking store so close to the ones they already have? Why did they need to build right next to a local coffee shop, one that's a fixture in the UAB community? Are they trying to be the epitome of an evil corporation? Do they not realize that it's crummy PR, or do they just not care?

My guess is that it's the latter. Look, Lucy's will survive, for a while. She has loyal customers, and they aren't about to desert her for Starbucks.

But eventually, those loyal customers will drift away. This is a university community; people graduate, take jobs elsewhere. It's a very transient population. And new people will come in, new people who don't know Lucy Bonds from Lucille Ball. They'll see Starbucks on the corner; they know what Starbucks is; and so, naturally, they'll buy their overpriced coffee there.

The thing is, this new Starbucks can survive for six months, a year, 18 months, even without making a profit. So if they have to sit back and wait for Lucy to go out of business, they can do that -- after all, they're a multinational corporation. What's a few months, a year of financial loss for them? It's a tax writeoff, and they can just bide their time. After they eventually drive Lucy out of business, they'll be the only coffee shop on that corner, and they'll definitely make money then.

I wish I could stick a vow to never step inside ANY Starbucks, ever again. But I just can't. They're too ubiquitous, and I like coffee too much.

I guarantee you, though, I'll never set foot inside that Starbucks. If they manage to drive Lucy out of business, I guess I'll just have to learn to live without mochas and lattes, at least at work.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope after a year or so, Starbucks is the one that closes up and Lucy remains behind. But it's just really hard to believe that would happen.

Have you ever seen a Starbucks go out of business? Me neither.