Not So Cool Beans

I was just at a favorite Pioneer Square coffee shop of mine (which will remain nameless) that charges 50 cents for refills of plain old black coffee. I don't remember having to pay such fees at coffee shops, say, five years ago -- and I can't recall any city I've ever visited where so many coffee shops charge a fee for refills. This strikes me as oddly pathetic, considering that Seattle is considered the nation's coffee capital. I've long felt that there should be a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the coffeehouse lingerer the inalienable right to as many free refills as he or she can consume in one city. The fact that such an amendment doesn't exist crushes the wallet of people like my hyperkinetic colleague Brian Miller, who had the hot brown stuff pumped intraveneously into his left arm until the Feds threatened to imprison him for the practice.