Garrett M. Vonk

Is it just me, or are we past the point where you’re allowed to complain about the complexity of the process at Starbucks? Not only are the sentiments “OMG Starbucks is teh confusing” and “Small = Tall? What a country!” incredibly overused and flat out not funny, but people usually talk about their confusion as if they’re the first coffee novice to ever experience this problem.

There is no tolerance for novices who do have enough respect for the fancy-coffee place to study and learn the culture. I could feel the cold stares of the experienced customers who were full of heavy-syllable words spelling caffeine relief ending in “o” and I was requiring them to dam up this river of syllables until I could babble, in layman’s garble, a pitiful attempt to order something that may not even end in “o.”

I could feel the hostile text-messaging going on around me.

I didn’t want to be here now. I now wanted to be somewhere else, maybe drinking a cup of coffee in the English language.

It’s not like Detective Rose strolled into the Starbucks at 7th and Broadway in Manhattan. He’s probably talking about the location on Roswell Rd. near Hammond, around the corner from a big-ass Kroger, and across the street from a McDonald’s. I’ve been there many times. You generally encounter soccer moms and landscapers here just as often as you see graphic designers and music critics. The big difference, apparently, is that said soccer moms actually figured out what kind of coffee they sell years ago.

“What size would you like that in sir?” said the coffee technician.

“Small.”

“Tall?”

“No, small.”

“Small is tall sir.”

“Tall sounds big. Small sounds like what I want. Is tall the same size as small?”

“All I know is tall is small so small must be tall.”

I’m in a Dr. Seuss cartoon.

[from this week's View From The Cop, an AJC blog written by a Sandy Springs police officer]

Yes, sir, you’re in a Dr. Seuss cartoon. Welcome to 1996, when everyone else made the same observation and then got over it.