Starbucks

Starbucks pissed me off today. For the last three weeks I’ve been teaching at a location other than where my office is located. This means I can’t make my small pot of coffee in the morning, so I’ve been stopping in Starbucks every morning.

All of these mornings I go in and order a large coffee and a pastry, and I receive a large coffee and a pastry. This morning I ordered a large coffee and a pastry, and I received a medium coffee and pastry. I understand that Starbucks wants to resemble themselves after the coffee bars of Europe, thus calling their coffee sizes tall, grande, and venti. But, if you have three drink sizes (no matter what you call them) they have to be small, medium and large. Logic dictates that if you have three different sizes, one size is smaller than the other two. That size will be the small size. And, if you have three different sizes, one size is larger than the other two, than that size will be large. The size left over will be medium. It is smaller than large, but larger that small, it is in the middle and that’s what medium means, an intermediate state (it comes from the Latin word medius meaning the middle).

I know you may be thinking that this is such a minor thing, and I shouldn’t be pissed about it. But, it was the morning, and I hadn’t had any coffee yet. The barista should be glad I didn’t get all medieval on them (that’s the European version of going Postal).