A Confession For The Deaf

I get that the cup size naming system at Starbucks seems a bit pretentious, but there is a reason for it. There used to be only two sizes: Short and Tall. Short was smaller and Tall was larger. But we're not Americans if we're not turning blessings into curses, so enough coffee wasn't. We wanted more, we want more, so the Grande was introduced as an even larger size. For a time it was the largest.

Still, some Smiths were having trouble keeping up with those Joneses who were making a great go of cancer and vascular disease via their consumption habits. So in submission to the demands of the market, Starbucks came up with yet an even larger size: the Venti. Now confusion might come about because grande sometimes means large and we often think large is... large, but in the Starbucks world Grande seems to mean medium. Well, okay it might seem like that, but a Grande is large (16 oz. of whatever it is you drink). A Venti is simply larger (20 oz. of whatever it is you drink). A large is large, but a Big Gulp is larger. That's one way to imagine it.

But we can also pretend that we don't know grande means large. In the world of Starbucks, it (especially as Grande) is just a symbol that means "a hot 16 oz. drink." Similarly, Venti is just another that means "a hot 20 oz. drink."

Italians mean twenty when they say "venti." Starbucks means something like a 20 oz hot drink, though it could mean something like "extra large." Italians mean big when they say "grande," and as I said, "Grande" was the first attempt at making a larger size for fat 'mericans. The naming motif was all a part of that emulating Italian coffee culture bit. In any case, you can have 8, 12, 16, or 20 oz. of hot drink at Starbucks.

So there, you can understand what those words mean.

Well...

As a Starbucks employee I didn't care if someone didn't know the history of the size names. Nor did I care if they said "large" when they meant "Venti" or "small" when they meant "Tall." I would care if they said "Tall" but meant "large." I would care because it would cause a problem for me- the problem starting with the statement, "That's not what I ordered..." I wouldn't care so much that I would need to give anyone a comment on names, only enough to remake a drink or retake an order with a crooked smile.

So...

One time, a particular customer asked for a plain Grande coffee. He made a point to tell me that he didn't drink those "froo-froo drinks." A lot of men found it necessary to point that out- that there was something not masculine in espresso mixed with milk and various flavored syrups. Sometimes they would tell me their wives ordered their fancy drinks. Sometimes they stumbled over the name of a drink- demonstrating how unfamiliar they were with ordering it, and also showing me how a real man doesn't need to make himself clear or meet someone halfway.

Ahmadedijad... Ahmendijad... Ahmadijad...

Other real men would emphatically order a regular drip coffee, "Can I just get a regular coffee- d'you still make those?" They would point out how silly the whole coffee culture was and explain to me how none of the other drinks counted as coffee. Whatever the specifics, they had made ordering coffee an expression of manliness.

So because he said Grande I grabbed a 16 oz cup and started serving his coffee. And he repeated, "Can I get a Grande coffee."

I paused, and asked if he wanted another in addition to the one I was already getting. He said he just wanted a Grande coffee.

Okay.

"Oh," I said, "You want the largest size. Sorry about that." I got him his "large" coffee and handed it to him saying, "Maybe it's silly but we call our largest size a Venti- we were just speaking different languages there."

That could've been the end of it. But he wouldn't be manly if it was. He had to say, "I know, that's because it's French." "Actually, I think it's Italian," I said.

"No. It's French." And he walked away.

I was mostly struck by the confident ignorance. There's a lot of that going around and it's largely tolerated, excused, or even honored. At least it seems honored in certain quarters- quarters where "not knowing" is a virtue. Where book-learnin' is snobbery. Where listening to others is weakness. Where not staying the course is cutting and running.

So I tried an experiment with a friend the other day. I decided I would say things that are completely and verifiably wrong to see how people would respond. I said a lot of things that I thought would count. I was called on one and, like a real man, I stood my ground.

"Such and such is in this place."
"Isn't it in 'blank?'"
"No- It's not.'"

...

It wasn't easy. I'm not suggesting that I don't frequently say something incorrect. I do it all the time. That's easy. But I'm sure I often don't know if I'm saying something wrong, and those times when I am told I am wrong, I'm correctable. What was difficult was knowing that I was being a jerk, both through my experiment, and for insisting that I was right. Or rather, for playing the role of the jerk by equating being right with self-assuredness, confusing being right with an inability to be wrong.

My friend didn't press the issue. In part because I was pretty good at making it clear I would not yield. And I'm sure, in part, because he's not a dick. But for that time, I was.

So there you go. I might be a jerk. But I learned something. (Something I probably already knew or could have learned without being a jerk- but what are you gonna do?)

Where can we go when I say something is this and you say it's this? We're not talking about the same thing and it's not just a matter of confusion.

So some guy insists Venti is French.

I insist Tubingen is in Switzerland.

Big deal. We move on.

But someone says "Liberty is 'This'" or "'Such' is the Word of God." Those might be the very things around which we cannot move- the kind of things that put an end to we. We say no such thing, and if we can, we become something else.

So what? We're always becoming something. I became a someone who knows Venti means something. Maybe that's worth something; maybe it isn't. Who's to say we shouldn't be a people who mean, "You handle snakes and I have five spouses and it's all good" when we say, "The Lord may direct each of us in different ways. We also know that individuals cannot and should not manage every decision that a group may face. So, we trust one another to hear and follow God's direction?" Maybe that means something to some "us," but it seems like the kind of statement that seeks to undermine the very idea of any "us" that can say anything. It seems like the kind of statement that says, "I say this and you say this but at least we're both talking about color... though we'd never know." Sure, words can mean anything; but for them to mean something, they can't mean everything. There is some we that says, "this is this." Otherwise we're not saying anything to each other, let alone saying something.

"This is God's Kingdom we're talking about." This is indeed.

-Venti is French
-Venti is Italian
-No. It's French.
-Really? Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei... venti. That's Italian. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six... vingts. That's French.
-Venti is French.

What more is there to say? A nylon Bible case, a Bluetooth earpiece, a silk shirt, and spiked hair= impenetrability. We don't mean the same things, and similarly, we don't do the same things. "Venti Is French" doesn't want to know. "Venti Is French" practices not knowing. Not knowing makes his world stronger. But his is a world no more possible for me than one wherein I sacrifice my hypothetical children to the moon or being filled with the spirit means I do holy jumping jacks or the holy seated-cabbage patch (?)

We have to be a we that means something. We have to be a we worth being.

This House Is Ours, This House Is Ours
Mars, The Bringer of War- Gustav Holst
I Held Her in My Arms- Vilent Femmes
Gardening at Night- REM
How Deep is The Ocean- Stan Getz
Shelter From the Storm- Bob Dylan
Do You Realize??- The Flaming Lips
Light and day- The Polyphonic Spree
The Great Wall- Dead Kennedys
Let's Go to Bed- The Cure
Gotta Jibboo- Phish
Virtual Insanity- Jamiroquai
Mr. Syms- Jon Coltrane
Hot Cha- They Might Be Giants
The Holiday Song- The Pixies
On a Holiday- Brian Wilson