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Showing posts from October, 2015

Starbuckese

“I’ll have a grande Pike Place with a splash of cream in a venti so there’s room.” This is how I begin most days. That’s Starbuckese for, “I’ll have a regular coffee with a bit of cream in a cup that’s big enough to keep it from spilling over the lid while I drive like a maniac to work.”   It took me a while to learn Starbuckese. When I first started buying my coffee there I would order a large with cream. “Do you mean a tall, a grande or a venti?” “Light or dark?” “Do you want room?” “Uh….” I often thought to myself, “How can a ‘tall’ be ‘small’? Light or dark?! I just want coffee. Room where? For what?” Over time I learned their language and figured out how to order my coffee in exactly the right way. Today I am happy to report that my former anxiety, nerves and naiveté have been replaced with fluent Starbuckese.   Last week I spent a few days at the Upstate New York Synod Ministerium and it dawned on me halfway through the event that we were all speaking