Tim Hortons is Mean

Dear Tim Hortons:

I just drank my 17th cup of your pedestrian coffee this Roll Up season. During this season's run, I have won precisely one doughnut. Your aesthetically challenged red and yellow cup advises me that I have a "1 in 6" chance of winning a "food prize". I like those odds (although I'm not terribly taken with your food, but I am taken with winning in all its forms). I figure that those odds, coupled with the additional prizes, like 40 Toyota Rav 4s, 100 $5,000 MasterCards, 1,000 Napolean Grills and 25,000 $100 Tim Cards, makes my odds of winning something pretty damn good. Yet, in 17 tries, I've won only one "food prize", if you can call a doughnut "food". My abysmal win record runs contrary to the odds you've advertised. Frankly, I'm growing a little discouraged. Are you running a Tim's Casino here, where the coffee house always wins? I know I only paid $1.75 for my half-litre vat of 18% cream topped with middling coffee, but I'm starting to get the feeling that your just f*cking with me.

To be clear, I'm not entirely sure I want another doughnut, or even a $100 Tim Card because how the hell am I going to spend $100 at one of your stores? At your ridiculously low coffee and food prices, I'd be mired in a world of beige-through-tan foodstuffs for a year: it would be awful. But once-in-a-while, your incessant advertising and omnipresent availability gives me hope that, after all these years, it's finally my time for my big win - like a Napolean Grill. Granted, I already have a natural gas grill that I would likely continue to use - it's pretty nice. But man - the feeling of finally winning something that's not made of bleached wheat flour and confectioners sugar - that's what I want. And can you imagine if I won the Toyota? Of course, the Rav 4 is near the bottom of my dream car rankings, or even my practically affordable car rankings... but maybe I could sell it at a steep discount and pay off a fraction of the ever-escalating cost of our basement development. More importantly, I would finally feel vindicated for all the years I've stomached your unpleasantly hot and repugnant brew on a thin vein of hope that my reward was nigh.

So be warned: I'm nearing the end of my rope. I'm only going to purchase one more coffee this morning... and maybe another this afternoon... and probably one on Thursday morning because I'm probably going to be working late on Wednesday night. But after that, and my Friday late morning coffee, if I don't get a reasonable win, I'm going to consider possibly not buying another coffee. I'm serious. I'll go right back to Starbucks in the middle of Roll Up season. Maybe... probably... if I can stomach over-roasted beans at inflated prices with no chance of winning anything... which I probably can't.

I hate you Tim Hortons. I hate you.

Faithfully Yours,

DJD