The Robb Report

Exactly what’s the purpose of the condiment bar in a coffee shop?  What’s the intended use?  What should be a customer’s expectation?

Here’s a story about a cafe owner going berserk over a customer ordering a “double espresso poured over ice.”  It turns out this is a way for people to save money / rip-off a cafe on the purchase of a latte.  For example, by ordering espresso+ice and then filling up with “free” milk at the condiment bar, one can save a buck or two on the cost of the drink.

I’m so clueless … err, I mean ethical … I had no idea.

There’s a whole slew of interesting ethical questions here.  But then I was shocked to realize that I might be one of them: I like a lot of milk/creamer in my coffee.  Up to and including making it a full-on cafe au lait.  I frequently pour out a half-inch or more of my coffee (even after I ask for “room”) to be able to put more milk in.

I had never thought twice about it.  But sometimes I’d wonder why they never really give me “room” when I ask for “room”!  Hmm.  Am I violating some kind of implicit contract between the establishment and myself? If so, then what should I be ordering?  “Cafe au lait” usually is not what I’m going for.  What’s half-way betwen that and black coffee?  Is a “latte” what I’m describing?

I’ve always intentionally avoided learning all of the froo-froo names of the various coffee drinks.  “A man’s drink has a name which is a list of its ingredients”, you know.  Maybe it’s time I start — for all I know, I’ve been drinking back-alley lattes for years.

Who knew?  This morning I was listening to my favorite local radio talent, the Rick Emerson Show, and I learned about St. Genesius, who is the Patron saint of actors, clowns, and lawyers.

I attempted to find out how “lawyers” figures in there, and only found one small mention of the ironic (or not) inclusion, and no conclusive information.

St. Genesius info:

Wikipedia

Saints Preserved

With apologies to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Edgar Allen Poe, and the OMSI.

Who rides so late through night and wind?
It is the student, tired and thinned.
She brings a key tucked in her arm,
For she was told it works a charm—

To breach a door that’s down below,
Where only mold and spiders grow.
The door! Is it true, is it really there,
A portal to a secret lair?

Deep under Wood Hall’s classroom maze,
Icy darkness met her gaze.
She forged on forward ‘though in doubt,
Would Providence help her get out?

At last—plain view—she swiftly saw, The open door, a gaping maw. What can that mean, who’s gone before? The resident, a thing of yore? She darted through—can’t turn back now, She would unmask the sacred cow: Rumors would soon be deflated, She’d learn how grades are calculated. Down a hall and ‘round a bend, She had not time to apprehend, The spectacle of which she saw, A random towering thing of awe.

‘Twas tall and strange the apparatus,
Curious spheres inside a lattice.
Clink and clank, they tumbled well,
And formed a curve in the shape of a bell.

The grading machine did distract
Her from the creature’s sneak attack—
Oh the basement shook, the rodents fled,
Their fight provoked a mighty dread,

She fathomed then, ‘neath the queer glow,
This was a mistake, ab initio.
And as she fell, the last she saw,
Three A-pluses in Con Law!

Copyright 2008, Robb Shecter, All rights reserved.