Size Matters to Vancouver Coffee Drinkers

At my coffee shop we have (brace yourself) 3 sizes.

Yes thats right, only three.

They are SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE.

This size naming practice has been an english speaking North American standard for a very long time; so long in fact I'm tempted to say it's been the standard forever.

But somewhere around, hmmm… let's say… 1971 when another coffee shop was established in let's say, hmmm… Seattle had a name that rhymed with, hmmm…let's say “lardmucks” decided to for some lame-ass reason use 4 sizes (by lame-ass I mean ridiculously pretentious).

People slowly but surely started to get trained like Pavlov's dogs to bark orders at ALL coffee clerks in these four pseudo-Italian and (height inspired?) COMPLETELY balderdash size names. Short, Tall, Grande and Venti.

Myself being a coffee server have now fallen frazzled victim to hearing this Mc. Size ordering standard. After a customer says to me “can I get a tall coffee?” I'm left stewing at the counter grinding my beans in contemplation of whether or not I should try and retrain them back to their Sm. Med. Lrg. roots.

I mean, I know that a “tall” is the equivalent in ounces (12 to be exact) of a medium one of our beverages. I could correct a patrons ordering style to suit my personal corporate branding agenda, but really! Is it my place as the girl that pours your morning cup of Joe to also pour you a morning cup of brainwashing fluid? I don't think so.

I'm a modern gal and will say that I'm not afraid to admit that size really doesn't matter that much to me. It's how you use your words that count.

You can waltz right into my café all cock-proud, come press yourself right up against my counter look me in the eyes and say “I want a grande from ya” and I won't get squirrelly furrow my brow then condescendingly say “you mean you'd like to order a large coffee ?”

Because guess what? Without you using the exact word “large” I'm picking up what your putting down, I can connect the dots. I'm the thinking sort of person and even if I wasn't I'd be feeling out your vibe. You want a big coffee pronto. I have no problem getting that for you and without the verbal head-pat too.

I wish those Lardmuckers could say the same for themselves.

Ever notice how when you use the size “small” one of their bazillion locations that the cashier will automatically repeat back to you in question form “You mean tall?” then even louder call out the order to the barista “One TALL Americano please” who then also parrots back as they write on the cup “One tall Americano” who then repeats again as they place your drink on the bar “One tall Americano”. This alien lardmuckian lingo spoken repetitiously from the green aprons of corporate coffee planet is their way of standardizing their Java-wocky size names.

As if they didn't have the technology or money years ago to implement a silent screen read-out at the coffee bar that told them the orders to make like in any of the other fast food chains they copycat in coffee form.

There are a ton of other systems they could have implemented to make sure you ended up with the drink that makes you feel oh so special and unique. They say their unnecessarily complicated drink sizes and names loud and proud for one reason, to set themselves apart and to take ownership of a part of the language that has already belonged to us since forever. Coffee and sizes. But you know Kleenex did that with the disposable hanky, and Q-Tips did that with cotton swabs. I just hope the lord can save us from calling all coffee Starbucks and all smalls talls. Ugh.

Imagine what kind of pathetic word this would be if we had to call objects by the leading competitor's brand name? You see the Mike Judge film Idiocracy? It kinda touches on this point and it would be a sad, sad world, but that's a whole other blog.