Curb Your Incivility: The Last Starbucks
After mocking a man who scams free drinks, Larry David tries it himself and learns that karma, like coffee, is best served hot.
I’m Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, a movement to renew our culture through beauty, wisdom, and civility. Here, we take part in the Great Conversation—the ongoing dialogue among seekers across time and place about what it means to live well, to belong, and to flourish together. Civic Renaissance exists to help us remember what is most worth loving—beauty, goodness, and truth—and to live those truths in the work of restoring civility, meaning, and grace in our daily lives.
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Gracious reader,
Life together is fragile. We often don’t realize a norm exists until someone breaks it. Manners are like the air we breathe; as Edmund Burke observed, they surround us so completely that we forget they’re there. And that’s why the Larry Davids of the world are indispensable.
For the uninitiated: Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld and television’s favorite curmudgeon, went on to create Curb Your Enthusiasm—a show based on his own persona. It’s run, off and on, for more than two decades on HBO. He says he’s finished now, but who can say?
Larry tests the limits of our social fabric. He calls out the oblivious, the inconsiderate, and the freeloaders among us—those who violate the unspoken contracts of civilized life. In doing so, he becomes both violator and defender of those very norms.
The Freeloader Problem
Economists call it the free rider problem: when individuals benefit from shared goods or social order without contributing to them. In daily life, it is the person who cuts in line, double dips, or quietly takes advantage of everyone else’s good manners. Most of us look the other way, too bound by politeness or the fear of awkwardness to intervene. Usually, Larry David is the one who breaks through that social paralysis. He is the character willing to endure the discomfort of calling out the inconsiderate and exposing the freeloaders of modern life.
In this vignette, the tables turn. Most baristas would never risk the awkwardness of accusing a customer of lying, yet this one does. She calls Larry out, publicly and without hesitation, for trying to pull the very scam he once condemned. It is a perfect inversion of the free rider dynamic and of Larry’s moral universe. For once, someone else enforces the social norm while Larry becomes the violator, caught in the act and punished for the very behavior he has spent twenty years policing. The humor lands precisely there, in the irony that on his first attempt at dishonesty, Larry gets exposed as the freeloader he has always tried to stop.
If the treatments I’ve written here gain traction. Well, maybe we can persuade him to come back for one more season. I know there are a few die-hard Curb fans among the Civic Renaissance readership. So do what you can to help: forward these to fellow fans, tag Larry David’s team, tweet them his way.
And if, by some miracle, he’s inspired to pick up again, you can be sure I’ll invite Civic Renaissance readers to join me on set to meet LD himself.
Happy reading—and let me know what you think of this treatment. Each vignette grew out of my own daily musings and observations on the fragile, funny, and endlessly fascinating experiment of human civility.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Episode 2: “The Replacement Coffee”
Written by Alexandra O. Hudson
Based on characters and show created by Larry David
INT. STARBUCKS – DAY
Larry’s waiting for his order when he overhears a GUY at the counter.
GUY:
Yeah, the last Starbucks got my order wrong. Can you replace it?
BARISTA:
Uh… sure.
The guy walks off with his drink, smug.
LARRY (to himself):
They just give him a new coffee? No receipt, no nothing?! Unbelievable. The guy’s basically a caffeine panhandler
He shakes his head and moves on.
INT. AIRPORT STARBUCKS – DAY (A FEW DAYS LATER)
Larry’s at the counter again. Same guy.
GUY (to barista):
I paid for my order but had to fly out before I got it. Can you remake it?
Larry stares, squinting.
LARRY:
(To himself) It’s him again. I knew it.
(To the guy) So, uh, I’ve seen you a few times at Starbucks lately getting free drinks. What’s going on?
GUY (grinning):
It’s great! I haven’t paid for a Starbucks since 1996. I’ve saved over a hundred thousand dollars on drinks and food orders. They never ask for a receipt!
LARRY:
A hundred thousand dollars?!
GUY:
Easily. You just tell them the last place got it wrong, or that something was missing. They replace it every time.
LARRY:
You’ve turned lying into a rewards program.
GUY:
They can afford it. It’s a victimless crime.
LARRY (shaking his head):
It’s not victimless. The victims are the rest of us who pay eleven dollars for a cup of coffee!
INT. AIRPORT STARBUCKS – ANOTHER DAY
Larry orders.
LARRY:
I’ll have a medium coffee. Leave room for cream.
The barista rings him up.
BARISTA:
That’ll be $11.07.
LARRY:
Eleven dollars?! For coffee?!
The barista shrugs and fills his cup completely to the brim.
LARRY:
No room for cream!
BARISTA:
Sorry about that.
Larry pauses, thinking about the scam guy.
LARRY (to himself):
He’s saved a hundred thousand dollars…
He goes to the counter.
LARRY:
Yeah, uh, the last Starbucks got my order wrong. Can you replace it?
BARISTA:
What was the drink?
LARRY:
A coffee.
BARISTA:
What kind?
LARRY:
Uh, Honduras light roast.
BARISTA:
Sir, we don’t carry a light roast—or anything from Honduras. There’s, uh, an unstable geopolitical situation there.
LARRY:
Maybe it was Guatemala! Does it matter?!
BARISTA:
You’re complaining that you got more coffee?
LARRY:
No, I’m complaining that I got too much coffee. There’s no room for cream!
BARISTA:
You could pour some out yourself. Like this—(pours a little out of a cup)—see? Room for cream.
LARRY:
That’s not the point! The point is that you got it wrong!
BARISTA:
Well, do you have a receipt?
LARRY:
Uh, no. But you never ask for a receipt!
BARISTA:
Oh, so you’ve done this before? Asked for a replacement coffee with no receipt?
LARRY:
No, I haven’t. This is the first time I’ve ever done this. But protocol and decorum dictate that you trust your customers and don’t ask for receipts.
BARISTA:
Decorum? Protocol? Sir, something tells me that you’re not exactly an expert in either of these things. And what do you mean we should “Trust our customers?” What if they’re not trustworthy, as I suspect you are not?
LARRY:
(utterly speechless, mock horror, face aghast in indignation)
Me? Not trustworthy?
BARISTA:
That’s right. You see, I don’t think there was a “last Starbucks” at all.
BARISTA:
I don’t think there was a “last Starbucks.” I think you’re one of those people pretending the last place messed up just to get free drinks.
LARRY:
Seriously?! What ever happened to “the customer is always right”?
BARISTA:
Not when the customer’s a felon.
LARRY:
A felon?! You’re calling me a felon?! Over cream space?!
BARISTA:
I’m calling it how I see it.
LARRY:
Well, congratulations! You’ve lost my business. I’ll never come back to a Starbucks—anywhere, ever again!
BARISTA:
Good! We’ve probably lost money on you anyway.
Other baristas start clapping and chanting.
BARISTAS (chanting):
Don’t come back! Don’t come back!
Larry freezes.
BARISTAS:
Scourge on society! Scourge on society!
Larry backs away slowly, stunned.
LARRY (muttering):
Scourge on society… for coffee.
INT. AIRPORT TERMINAL – MOMENTS LATER
Larry’s walking with JEFF and SUSIE.
JEFF:
How’d it go?
LARRY:
They called me a scourge on society.
SUSIE:
You are a scourge on society! You tried to steal coffee, you lunatic!
LARRY:
I wasn’t stealing! I was experimenting!
JEFF:
You experiment with dishonesty now?
LARRY:
You wouldn’t understand, there’s a principle involved.
SUSIE:
Yeah, the principle that you’re a cheap bastard!
They all stop near another coffee stand. Larry looks at a $9 sign for drip coffee, grimaces, and buys one.
He takes a sip, then frowns.
Close up on his order: Too much coffee. No room for cream.
Cue Frolic theme.
My latest speaking engagement at The Polo Club of Boca Raton
It was such a pleasure for Bash and me to be with the Polo Club of Boca Raton last evening, sharing The Soul of Civility. They affectionately call it “summer camp for adults,” and I can see why. Bash was the true star of the night: we could hardly keep him off the stage, and everyone loved meeting him!
Ronnie and her husband Gary first saw me on C-SPAN a few months ago, and it was from that interview that the invitation came. Books & Books, Miami’s premier independent bookstore, drove all the way up from the 305 to host book sales for the event. I signed over a hundred copies afterward for their upcoming Miami Book Fair!
It was a special joy to be with an audience of such wisdom and experience. I wanted to affirm that their legacy matters—that the kindness, courage, and grace they have practiced throughout their lives continue to shape the world in ways they may never see. I shared the story of my grandmother, Margaret, who embodies what I call the mellifluous echo of the magnanimous soul: the idea that one person, through the cumulative effect of a life well lived, has more power than they may realize to make the world a better and brighter place.
They were such gracious and generous hosts, and we’re already looking forward to our next visit.
Interested in bringing a conversation about civility to your community? I’d be delighted to join you. Email me at ahudsonassist@gmail.com, and let’s build stronger communities together.
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1. Share the Civility Summit recap video, tag your community, and remind people that renewal begins wherever we choose attention over outrage.
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This program is something I created to get to know you—and to support those of you who want to do more with the ideas of my book and of Civic Renaissance: healing our present through the wisdom of the past, and through healing ourselves.
Your participation can take many forms. You might start a book club (I have resources to help you host one), or even organize a Civility Summit in your community. Whatever your vision, I’d love to help you bring it to life.
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Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!
I love your Curb screenplays! You do it well. Calling it 'cream space' shows you speak LD like a natural.
The only thing less civil than incivility is hypocrisy: pretending we don’t enjoy its punishment.