Scott Liddicoat

It’s pretty cool how inspiration works…

My wife gave me nine stops to make with the last minute, day before Christmas shopping.  This is something I’m trusted to do as I’ve learned to do it well.  

[Note to men soon to be married.  Be careful.  Becoming good at performing tasks your wife wants you to do has its perils.]

I got to the first of two coffeehouses on my fourth stop.  After picking up my gift certificate, I noted something about the line of cars waiting for drive-through service.  It looked pretty much the same as the line of cars I see waiting almost any time I drive past.  Long.  And slow.  So slow that the bright orange car at the back of the line when I drove up had advanced only five (of eleven) spots in about four minutes.

Three stops later, I got to my second coffeehouse.  This one, however, was drive-through only.  I got in line.  Twelve minutes later I paid for my gift certificate and pulled away.  

It started coming together… 

All those cars.  All of that idling.  All the waiting.  All of the air pollution and global warming!  And all of it to no good purpose.  Except to wait and pay for coffee.

Then came inspiration!  What if…

What if government required drive-through services to have license plate readers?  The moment you join the line, your engine idling time is tracked.  Then when you get to the window, there are two payments to make.  One for the coffee.  The second one for a global warming idling tax of $1.00 per minute.  Seems fair.  From what I’ve seen of just coffeehouse lines, this would bring in billions and billions of dollars.  And who better to pay a global warming tax than those who are causing it?

But wait, this idea gets even better.  Way better.

My son loved the idea when I told him about it (and its inspiration) a few minutes after getting home.  He recommended this improvement, though.  Everything works the same, except the customer only pays for their order at the window.  The “idling tax” or global warming tax” is paid by the coffeehouse.  This way, customers are in no way discouraged from returning.  And the coffeehouse?  In no way are they harmed either. 

How can this be?

This new tax will be added to the special taxes most politicians claim don’t raise prices.  Like when they say corporations need to pay their “fair share.”  The politicians claim corporations don’t have to raise prices to pay higher taxes.  My new “global warming tax” will be one of those, a special tax that doesn’t raise prices. 

This way no one is affected financially.  And think, just think about how much money can be raised.  Quickly, too.  The special tax is flawless.  Global warming.  Problem solved.  Cool.

Except every great government program needs a trendy acronym.  How about this one?  COFFEE:  Combating Ongoing Fossil Fuel Engine Emissions.

I hope you can get behind me and my program as I begin promoting it to the politicians.  I’m sure they’ll love it.

And if you want global warming solved sooner?  I’m working on a plan to raise money based on unoccupied cars heating or cooling while idling in store parking lots.  Talk about global warming!

I don’t have the details worked out, but we can call it the Idle Duration Levy Enforcement.  IDLE, like COFFEE, will be a special tax.  You know, the kind that doesn’t take money from anyone.  Global warming solved even faster.  Pretty cool, don’t you think?

Saltwatertea.org                  1/1/26