Snobbery and Shmuckery  

I was waiting for my drink at a cafe today and a guy went to pick up his macchiato. He kind of stopped dead for a couple seconds and just looked into his cup, which I thought was hilarious since he was obviously expecting something more along the lines of what Starbucks serves. He walked back to his girlfriend in a daze, still gazing into his anemic drink. He still didn't quite believe it when he told her, "It's just, like, espresso." She said she was sorry in the way you tell a 5-year-old you're sorry the bug he just made friends with in the park flew away without saying goodbye. He was moved to ask the employees what a macchiato was, exactly, which is either pretty bold or pretty thick, since when this happened to me the first time I figured it out and was too embarrassed to protest.

The employees had to know by his bewildered face what had happened, but they feigned this total unawareness of the Starbucks menu, "A macchiato's just a shot with foam; 'macchiato' means marked, so the coffee's just marked with foam. Oh, you wanted like a Starbucks sort of...?" They left that question open-ended, inviting him to further belie his naivete. Another customer in line took it upon herself to help the poor gentleman by telling him in the most condescending tone I've heard outside of a Chloe outlet store, "You probably wanted a mocha or something, or a latte with lots of sugar and stuff." Well, yes he did, but hell if anyone with any pride at all was going to ask for one now. He went back to his girlfriend who offered up another helpless apology on behalf of the universe, and the folks in the cafe went back to ordering and drink sophisticated coffee like sophisticated people.