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What’s a Tim Hortons, and What Bugs Me Most About It?
Today I visited a Tim Hortons, a Canadian donut shop chain named after some hockey player who killed himself in a drunken high-speed police chase. The sesame bagel with cream cheese was almost as good as you get at Dunkin Donuts, but what was that brown liquid?
Advertised as “coffee,” it tasted like a watered-down undercooked version of a Starbucks “Brewed Coffee” (the bottom-of-the-line Starbucks offering). Lots of cream and sugar helped, and it was a heck of a lot cheaper than my Starbucks fave, a Grande Caffè Mocha, so I didn’t complain.
Well, until now. It suddenly occurred to me that drinking even a barrel of this Tim Horton coffee wouldn’t have sobered up the hockey player enough to spare his wife and four daughters the misery of his loss.
From what I understand, Horton’s sports career had already left the building. You know, lots of trades and injuries, the typical warning signs that you missed your stop.
Okay, so you love hockey, you love Tim Horton, and you love his chain’s coffee. Fine with me. Some people like tea with milk. Some people think Sarah Palin could be President some day. There’s no end to insanity in this world.
So what’s my beef here? Well, drunk driving, for one thing. Never a good idea. Trying to escape the cops at 100 miles per hour - another bad move. Rich, famous people hanging on to their careers far too long, just sad. Becoming self-destructive to the point of letting down your remaining fans and devastating your family, well that’s plain selfish.
Watered down coffee never appealed to me, but I can understand some people wanting to avoid caffeine for medical reasons. Tim Hortons coffee fans criticizing the much larger and more successful Starbucks chain, petty jealousy.
But the thing that bugs me most about all this is the lack of possessive apostrophes in store names. No wonder the latest generation can’t spell, what with all the poor examples out there on banners and billboards.
Jim Lawter
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First of all, this idiot (Lawter) doesn’t know that Tim Horton is not only in the book of the 50 greatest hockey players of all time, but that he was killed speeding, reckless yes, but was not driving drunk. He was on the QEW on his way home from a practice. Second of all, Tim’s started back in the late 60’s and therefore is older than the Starbuck’s chain. Third, Tim’s is growing and not closing over 600 stores like the “successful” Starbuck’s chain. And last, Starbuck’s brews some of the most overpriced, putrid, bitter coffee ever and can’t hold a candle to the mellow taste of Tim’s.
Thank you for your comments! By the way, Horton was not only driving drunk when he died, but he had painkillers in his system as well. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Horton : “An autopsy report released in 2005 showed Horton had a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit. The blood test also showed signs of amobarbital, which was possibly a residue from the Dexamyl pills that were found on Horton’s body.” Secondly, good for the Tim Horton chain for being older than Starbucks - what’s your point? Third, at the end of 2008, Tim Hortons had 3,437 stores worldwide while Starbucks had 16,120; both chains continue net expansion. Lastly, if we all had the same taste buds, there’d only be one coffee chain. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to clear things up for you.