Venti?

I know that you have come to think of me as a sophisticated man-about-town.  In fact, you'd be right. I'm totally hip and groovy.  No one is more with it than I.

What can I say, chicks dig me.  Why wouldn't they?



Me and the Fonz.

I'm also unabashedly American.

I went to Starbucks this morning.  I was in line with a friend and I ordered first.  I simply said, "Large Coffee."  I know that there is an Italian code about sizes, but I refuse to learn what it is.

If I want something big, I say large, because we speak English in America.  Apparently, It's a confusing concept to Mr. Starbuck because Starbucks speaks Italian.  So, their confusion about language confuses the hell out of me.

Here's the deal about the sizes and I'm not making this up:

"The drink sizes we offer are Short (8 fl. oz.), Tall (12 fl. oz.), Grande (16 fl. oz.), Venti® Hot (20 fl. oz.), Venti® Cold (24 fl. oz.) and Trenta®* Cold (30 fl. oz.). *Only available for Shaken Iced Tea, Shaken Iced Tea Lemonade, Iced Coffee, Cold Brew and Starbucks Refreshers®."

That was taken from the Starbucks website.

Are you kidding me?

I guess someone forgot to mention that we are in America, not Italia.  What's wrong with small, medium, and large?

In addition to my size faux pas, I committed another: I ordered coffee.

It's a social error on the order of pissing in a punch bowl.

What Are These Weird Drinks?

On the other hand, there is an advantage to ordering coffee.  He poured some coffee in a cup and gave it to me RIGHT AT THE REGISTER!  He didn't even ask my name.

Next, when it was her turn to order, my friend said something that I couldn't understand.  Predictably, he asked her her name.

When her drink came, it was wrong.  They gave her a hot chocolate.  I was chuckling on the inside because my strategy makes such a misunderstanding nearly impossible.  And I didn't have to have my name shouted in a room full of strangers.  Win-win.

As per usual, my season of winning didn't last long, because, as I was about to leave, I remembered something.

Crap.  Fiance' asked me to bring something back for her.  I knew that the good times wouldn't last.

I told her to text me the literary code that would translate into the goofy-ass drink that she wanted.

So, she texted me this:

"Venti coffee frappacino with extra shot of espresso, double blended."

Geez.  I don't even know what that means.  You've got to have a graduate degree to order a damn cup of coffee.

I sure as hell wasn't going to say that out loud.  I might just as well put on a pair of lacy panties and model them.

If I said that, I'd prolly end up with the phone number of every available switch-hitter in the joint.

So, I just showed him my phone.  Let him decipher the gobble-de-gook.  He nodded in understanding and, you guessed it, asked me my name.  I told him Ralph.  

Sometimes it's the small victories.

TheCurmudgeon