Stranger in a Strange Land
I have always made it a point to be nice to tourists, and hope that others would extend the same courtesy to me. This isn’t always the case. I recently had an experience where I didn’t speak the language, and the natives quickly lost patience.
The other day, I was forced by circumstance to meet a professional acquaintance at a coffee shop. It was a nice, sunny day, and I thought that an iced tea would be much more refreshing than my usual cup of coffee.
I patiently waited in line behind people with complicated orders, and was immediately behind a woman who ordered a “venti four-pump double-shot low-fat half-whip mocha frappuccino,” which seemed to me to be an absurd combination of words, but it was met with happy chatter from the guy behind the counter. Finally, it was my turn.
“I’d like a large iced tea, please,” I said.
The skinny barista with a pierced eyebrow and tattoos from wrist to ears glared at me, black Sharpie marker halted midair. “You would like a venti?” he asked.
My mind reeled momentarily because I can never remember which of the random words that they use for sizes really means large. Is it “tall” which implies that it’s the tallest? Or “grande” which sounds bigger than tall? Which one is a “venti”? I quickly tried to scan the menu to help me find the answer.
He began to speak louder. “You want a venti iced tea?” he said with an air of superiority. “An iced tea. You do realize that this is an establishment that sells coffee?”
And that was when it dawned on me. There is an entire subculture here that I am not a part of, a subculture that requires trained beverage professionals to mix ice, whipped cream, flavor syrups, and caffeine to create expensive and elaborate 500-calorie coffee drinks that I simply don’t understand. And what’s more, this is what an entire generation thinks of when they hear the word “coffee.” Not simple black liquid poured from a pot. Fluffy drinks with whipped cream and straws the size of sewer pipes. From now on, I’ll be meeting my contacts at the shop near my house, one where words like “coffee” and “tea” still result in identifiable beverages.
In the meantime, I beg you: be nice to the tourists. All they want is a simple cold drink on a sunny day, even if they can’t speak the language.
