Free coffee!
I’m holding a contest and you should totally enter to win free coffee! Yay!
Why a contest*? Because I stopped at Starbucks on my way home this afternoon and experienced an amazing act of kindness and really want to pass on my joy.
Here’s the story:
I decided to stop in at Starbucks for a cup of Refresh tea to break up my journey home. I grabbed my laptop and headed into the shop. I’m standing there waiting to order when an older lady in front of me turned and said “I’m buying your drink today, so go ahead and place your order.” In my shock, I looked behind me thinking she must be talking to a friend. But no, she was talking to me.
She explained that seeing that my pretty floral dress matched my floral laptop sleeve made her smile and she wanted to do something to make me smile in return. I tried to protest but she wouldn’t have it any other way. Figuring my drink was only about a buck-sixty, and that it really would make her happy to buy it for me, I allowed her to do so.
I mean, how wonderfully kind was that? It was nice enough to just have the compliment of making someone smile, but then to get a free drink out of the deal? 100% awesome!
It got me thinking that the simple act of buying someone a cup of coffee can totally turn a plain day into a sprinkles-added day.
So now you know why, let’s talk about how!
How do you enter?
Answer one or more of these three questions by leaving a comment on this post. [Comments left on Facebook do not count, sorry.]
1) What’s your coffee order and why?
2) What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever witnessed when at the coffee shop?
3) What’s your favorite ‘random acts of kindness’ story?
When is the contest over?
Entries must be received by 10:00 pm Pacific Standard Time on Thursday, August 5th. [That translates to 6:00 am Greenwich Mean Time on Friday, 6th August, for folks in the UK.]
What do you win?
A $25 or £20 Starbucks gift card.
[NOTE: This assumes the winner is from America, Canada, or the UK. If you don’t live in one of those places but still want to play, we’ll figure out some way to get you free coffee in a currency you can use for roughly $25USD!]
Who can enter?
Anyone! You don’t have to ‘really’ know me. This can be your first-ever visit to my blog. Doesn’t matter. But you can only enter once.
How will the winner be determined?
The names of entrants will be placed in a hat and one will be randomly selected by Schrodie. OK, that last part is a lie. One will be randomly selected by me.
So, get busy answering one or more of the questions for your chance to get some free coffee!
* To give full credit, the inspiration for doing a contest at all came after reading a friend’s blog where she gave away a gift card to celebrate a great accomplishment in her life.
My favorite is Mocha latte
Funniest thing that I have seen to be honest haven’t yet, but if I do it would have to be someone going into a coffee shop and ordering a milkshake.
Act of kindness….One nite I was getting some coffee at a local mini mart and a guy was there trying to change a tire onto a rim…He didn’t have the money to have someone do it…So I had the clerk call around to see how much it would cost..I think that it came out to $50 at the time I only had $40 and got the clerk to pitch in the other 10….The guy couldn’t believe it…He said that he would come back and pay us back when he got back from Texas from picking up his family…Told him that it was alright not to worry about it all that I asked is that he help someone out down the road if he say they needed help….
1) My coffee order is usually something totally fru-fru with whipped cream and sprinkles. I like coffee but can’t handle anything that tastes too much like coffee is supposed to taste so I have to mask it with a whole bunch of crap to turn it more into a coffee scented hot chocolate !!
2) The funniest thing I ever saw in a coffee shop was courtesy of my then Fiancee on one of her first trips to the UK. We went into a Starbucks and she ordered a Mocha which of course was pronounced “mow-cuh”. This received EXACTLY the same blank stare that I get when ordering a “mock-uh” here in the US. Her face was priceless, especially as we’d had that same situation in reverse a few weeks previously and she’d had to help explain to the cashier what I was actually ordering. Gotta love the fact we’re all speaking the same language yet a totally different one all at the same time !!
3) I helped a woman in a mobility scooter who couldn’t reach the cereal in the supermarket once… Does that count ?
Not sure that Mom should enter, so I will just say this. HAVE SCHRODIE CHOOSE THE WINNER!! That could be a really fun video for her little corner of the web!
I don’t see why you can’t enter. Your entry won’t have any better shot at winning than any other entry since I’m going to ‘blindly’ draw a name from a hat. So come on – answer one (or more) of the three questions and play along!! You know you want to… 😉
1) My coffee order is usually no-frills coffee of the day with room for milk – some people might say that’s boring but I like to think of it as a classic
2) Hmmm – I can’t think of any funny things I’ve seen in coffee shops
3) Random Act of Kindness that happened to me – once at the Tate Modern, when I was standing in the lobby debating whether to brave the rain and go home, a man came up to me and gave his spare ticket to the Monet exhibition. When I came out it was no longer raining which was a nice bonus.
Random Acts of Kindness from me: I like to feed parking meters if I spot one about to expire and a traffic warden approaching.
Okay, here goes. My drink of choice in a fancy coffee shop is a cherry latte. It was cherry mocha, but then I went on dialysis and couldn’t have the chocolate. After the transplant, I just never went back to the mocha. Reason? I love chocolate covered cherries and the cherry mocha tasted like them!!
As for a random act of kindness, several years ago one of our then small daughters was riding her bicycle down swimming pool hill and had an accident. Some kind soul stopped for her and returned both her and her bicycle to our home. Some folks just have the neighborly thing down. (She ended up at the hospital with a broken knee cap.)
I must add that Schrodie should choose!!!
What a lovely idea, and what a fab experience! I’ll answer the questions but I don’t want to win – be sure to tell Schrodie to put my name back if it comes out first!
But to get into the spirit of it…
1) Here in the UK I always order skinny latte and then have to say, no I don’t mind that it’s semi skimmed rather than skimmed. (every time!!) But in North America I always end up ordering something much more exotic Mow-ca quite often (oh, I’ve had great fun with that one too btw) or a Caramel Salt Spiced Pumpkin Syrup of the Week Latte with extra cream. Mmmm, calories on holiday don’t count do they?
2) Funniest thing in a coffee shop – I usually just love eavesdropping other people’s conversations, it conjures up a whole different world. Watching a super charged baby crawl at top speed across the floor of my favourite coffee shop here at home at the weekend was pretty fun too!
3) Random acts of kindness – I like to stop and help people who are clearly lost and consulting their map upside down. Occasionally I even give them accurate directions – just kidding, I always do. I also love giving random compliments on what people are wearing if I see something I like. I know it makes me feel good when someone says something nice about the way I look, particularly strangers because it’s so gratuitous.
This is such a great idea . . .
1. While my absolute favorite coffee shop drink is a carmel macchiato, it’s very rare that I order one because I know they have a lot of calories. My usual is quite boring . . . plan black coffee.
2. At Barnes & Nobles the tables are quite close together so it is somewhat difficult to avoid hearing other’s conversations. I’ve been next to couples where it is obvious is is a first meeting / date. There was much awkwardness. Then I realized others probably thought the same about me when I was having “first dates” at Barnes & Noble in the past.
3. This summer I received an amazing random act of kindness. I still don’t know who cared enough to offer this gift. There is a huge planter in my front yard which I usually fill with beautiful flowers. This year, since I am grieving the loss of my fiancee, I just didn’t have the energy to buy and plant flowers. One day I came home from work to find the planter filled with beautiful flowers. Nobody has claimed credit. All of my friends told me to accept the gift in the spirit it was intended . . . so I did. I’m still thinking of a way to pass this on . . . and I will.
Peace, love, and blessings,
Linda
Linda, what a great thing for someone to do! My neighbors all cared for my lawn last summer right after my husband died, but I didn’t expect it to continue this year. But time and again I’d come home to see my lawn had been mowed.
It took a while to find the ‘culprit’ but I wasn’t too surprised to learn that it was an older man across the way on a riding mower! He was not happy when I started mowing again with my push reel, but we made a deal that he’d mow the back where it was patchy and uneven and he would ‘let me’ tend to the front.
A very kind act, indeed! (Must remember to make him some cookies this weekend!)
I’m glad you have lovely flowers to enjoy!
1. My favorite thing at any coffee shop is the hot chocolate since I don’t drink coffee. I know, who enters a contest for a coffee gift card when they don’t drink coffee? But I love hot chocolate and scones and feeling cool just sitting there with my non coffee beverage.
2. Probably the funniest thing is me, sitting there drinking hot chocolate.
3. I feel like i’ve been the recipient of so much goodness, a lot of it planned out. When my 4th child was 7 months old, I herniated two discs in my back and tore a ligament. I was layed up for an entire week. Unable to do anything, lift anything and I had 4 children 6 years and under to tend to. We lived in Rhode Island at the time, all of our family was 3000 miles away. So people from church came and brought meals, cleaned my house and stayed with me everyday until jeff came home, for an entire week until I could walk around again. I’ve never felt so loved by people other than my own family than I did at that time.
I think are lives are richer, fuller and more rewarding when we forget ourselves and find someone else to serve. Whether it’s a random act of kindness, or something on a larger scale.
I love this contest by the way, and I love that that lady treated you so beautifully.
!. I used to be a complete hardcore espresso or americano guy, until the weather here got turned up to super hot. So i buckled after sweating through my last americano and got a java chip frapaccino which (until winter) is now my favorite
@. Having to order four times before they understand me is actually now funny.
#. Not a coffee shop but a diner that served coffee where i watch as a family of four who i know were bought there dinner by a random stranger because he said they were so polite. This family happen to be millionaires. They duly let the gentleman buy them dinner as me and my wife just laughed.
My fav coffee: Iced Mocha!
Random act of kindness: A while back a friend made my day when I discovered I was behind her in a drive-thru lane. I got a big “rear-view mirror” smile and wave, and when she left and I pulled up to the window, I was told she had paid for my breakfast! It made me smile for many days, and when I found myself in a drive-thru with a friend behind me a couple of weeks ago, I decided to “pay it forward” and bought her breakfast!
I gave up coffee about 2 months ago, but back in the day I liked a ice cold caramel macchiato. Delicious!! Now days I’m strictly tea. Stash Green tea is my favorite.
Let Schrodie choose! And take a video of her doing it!!!!!!
Yay! Thank you everyone for participating in the first-ever Just Frances competition! And congratulations to Mark for winning the drawing!!