Does Starbucks Run Its Air Conditioning Cold On Purpose?

I bought a decaf coffee yesterday. I was just mocked when I told someone about it. This is disrespectful, but I like it. I think mocking someone for ordering decaf is funny. It does give me the urge to mock someone else, though, for something equally simple. Pass it along. If I had to guess, I’ll miss the mark on the execution. I’ll mock someone for something entirely inappropriate. Oh, you’re not ordering a beer because you’re eight months sober? Loser. This will escalate until Danny Tanner has to come in and calm us all down, resetting the entire milieu with a few pieces of fatherly wisdom and a kiss on top of the head. The whole escapade will take 22 minutes and 30 seconds.

Why did I order a decaf coffee? Well, it was 4 PM, and I was trying to finish work before picking the dog up from daycare (we learned that she’s been running with a “Doodle Gang,” a collection of dogs who are not only all hypoallergenic but also all have names ending with the letter ‘o’). I was cold. I was very cold. It was freezing in there. I’d packed a sweatshirt, because a lot of coffeeshops are cold this time of year, air conditioned for a 100º world but surrounded by a comfortable 80º. I was prepared! But. Haphazard to the last, I’d left my fragile ankles exposed, and the fans were on full blast, and my fragile exposed ankles were chilly. I was also groggy, or foggy, or whatever the word is for that feeling at 4 PM when your eyes are all heavy and you can’t think straight because you haven’t been eating enough because you’re struggling to calibrate your portion sizes, something that’s only an issue because you’ve been gaining weight for three years and you’re still holding out hope you won’t have to buy new church pants, and this is the time of year you look at the scale and decide to confront your appetite. I was cold. I was foggy. I was a little bit doughy. It was 4 PM in the Starbucks down the road from my dog’s suburban daycare facility.* And kids in Sudan think they have it bad!

So, I got something with some bite, to stimulate my senses and hopefully bring me back to consciousness without derailing my precious sleep. Also, importantly, to warm me up. I am a 29-year-old man whose grandfather farmed the plains south of Hawkeye Point. What have I become? I ordered a decaf coffee. The smallest size they had. Black.

Two dollars and 55 cents into Starbucks’ greedy coffers! 16 cents more to the state of Texas! A nickel to the city of Round Rock.** 5.1 rewards stars back to me, worth about 16 cents themselves at the going rate. Indirectly, a nickel back to me through my credit card’s cash rewards program. Success, everybody. We didn’t let sales tax win.

My question here, and I suppose there was a faster way to ask this, is whether Starbucks runs its air conditioning cold to encourage patrons to buy more hot drinks. Like how bars put salty snacks out so that you will become thirsty and increase your pace of drinking beers. Unless you’re eight months sober, that is. In which case you’ll increase your pace of drinking Diet Cokes or something, or more likely won’t be at the bar at all.

Does Starbucks do this?

Or should they start?

*The urban ones either overdo crate time or smell bad.
**Round Rock is a solid Austin suburb. Austin has a weak collection of suburbs, which is good, but Round Rock has the things you need. Like a minor league baseball team, and a doggy daycare that neither overdoes crate time nor smells bad.