Dear Miss Manners: When you treat someone to a cup of coffee

[lilysea]

Dear Miss Manners: When you treat someone to a cup of coffee at an expensive coffee shop, should they choose a smaller size?

Answer: Ah, but which is the smaller size? In today’s cutesy coffee shops, it is unlikely to be called “piccolo.’’
“Order from the middle of the menu,’’ nice ladies were taught, back when gentlemen always paid the bills. But Miss Manners realizes that this would be challenging in a shop that uses pseudo-Italian nomenclature, or where “jumbo’’ might be the most modest choice.

She suggests that a frugal host order preemptively by saying, “We’ll have two mezzos’’ (or whatever they are called), and then graciously inquiring of the guest, “How do you take yours?’’

Comments

[lunabee34]

Is the price difference between the sizes so great as to worry about this?

If you are on a budget, then say as the response suggests, can I get you a venti or whatever. Otherwise, who cares?

The LW is making me flash back to my childhood where the cheapest option was the only thing we could ever order on rare trips to restaurants.

[kutsuwamushi]

Honestly, if I was broke enough that I'd be willing to treat someone to a tall but not to a venti, I don't think I'd be treating someone at all. That's kind of like.... "I am concerned about whether I can afford tonight's beans and rice" territory.

[lunabee34]

Yep. That's exactly my feelings.

[jadelennox]

or I would say "hey, do you want to come over for coffee?" or "hey, do you want to meet at the coffee shop? we can get ourselves coffees!"

[cereta]

Heh. There was a post about only getting the cheapest options when someone treats you to dinner, too.

[lunabee34]

LOL

I have such personal hang ups about that topic because my family took thriftiness to a pathological level and used it as a weapon to bludgeon other people. It was a moral judgement they were making, not an economic one. Fortunately, they have gotten muuuuuuch better about this issue over time.