The Starbucks “Bearista” Holiday Mug Has Come To Wenatchee

Ever since the Tickle Me Elmo phenomenon of the mid-1990's, insatiable consumers in the Western world have been consistently willing to drain abundant amounts of their precious time, energy, and resources to scour the retail confines of Planet Earth in an attempt to acquire whatever the latest (social) media-fueled must-have item has become during any given holiday season.

Although every Christmas shopping cycle is routinely filled with any number of deliberately under-produced and overpriced material objects for crazed buyers to seemingly "choose" from, there's usually one that ends up topping the heap of stuff that's likely to be rendered totally worthless and either bound for the county landfill or the Salvation Army donation bin by the time the next holiday season rolls around.

Enter an early favorite for this year's top of that pile, the holiday "Bearista" mug from Starbucks.

This cute little fellow is made from clear glass that's hand-blown by caring artisans (Not! I'm kidding...it's made in China) in a shape that's reminiscent of the classic bear-shaped containers which are used to store honey. Replete with a ribbed stocking cap in Starbucks green, along with a dainty mug of his own and a candy cane-style straw (also in Starbucks green, of course), his function is like that of any other beverage receptacle - the liquid goes in and can then be sucked out through his hollow little brain. It's truly groundbreaking.

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The Bearista mug's arrival at Starbucks locations nationwide had been as highly anticipated as that of the Christ child's, and lengthy lines of people eager to part with thirty bucks and trap one for themselves formed outside many stores hours before they opened across the country this morning.

The bite of this year's Bearista frenzy didn't spare the Wenatchee Valley either, as similar lines snaked outside of all five Starbucks locations in town in the pre-dawn hours, and each was sold out of the currently-coveted critter within a half-an-hour of opening.

One human barista with whom I'm acquainted at the Starbucks store on North Miller Street in Wenatchee told me that employees arrived to find a long line at the front entrance at around 4 a.m. today, and that this hype-hungry mob emptied their entire stock of Bearista mugs in less than 10 minutes.

While the appetites of the Bearista-gobbling hordes in North Central Washington were no doubt voracious by any measure of consumerism, they were relatively tame when compared with the legions who rushed the gates of Starbucks stores in other U.S. cities on Thursday morning, including Houston, Texas - where two men reportedly got into a "bear"-knuckler over the limited edition mug, prompting the police to be called and at least one of them to take a ride downtown.

Although the Bearista mug retails for the astonishingly-low price of just $29.95 at Starbucks stores everywhere, his aftermarket ask is what you'll need to be ready to doll out now that every last one of them appears to have been sold earlier this morning. And at the moment, that means prices in excess of at least $200 on sites like eBay, with many actually fetching between $300-$500. Oh sure, I know you need this thing as much as you do this week's groceries or a good chunk of your car payment, right?

As you can probably tell, I personally don't see what all the fuss is about, but I'm also a hopeless idealist who cherishes his connection to individuality, never likes to find himself going with the mainstream flow, and is also not much for Christmas shopping either. In my view, our consumer-driven world took its mightiest wrong turn ever and plummeted to a neo-nadir of despicability when 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death by a maddened crowd of Black Friday shoppers all looking to score a doorbuster on a cheap TV set at a Walmart in Valley Stream, New York in 2008. On that morning 13 years ago, instead of busting the doors of the store, those insane zombies busted a human being's life for the sake of a good deal on a material possession. And although a few dozen folks waking up at 1 a.m. to stand outside in the cold for hours so they can get their paws on a mug that looks like a bear is not entirely tantamount, it's still an ugly limb that's attached to the same monster, in my humble opinion.

So, if you were one of the lucky few who managed to snag a Bearista mug from Starbucks this morning, then congratulations - you now possess one more thing that the insurance company likely won't replace for its true value in the event of loss or damage. But alas, I do hope it makes you happy. Now let's see for how long.