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

[commodorified]

I have to honestly say I have some sympathy for the letter writer in that the difference between a coffee, size medium, and the floofiest available drink at my local, size xl, is actually about five bucks.

So since I justify my coffeeshop habit by sticking to coffee mostly, if you're a floof addict I am less likely to do the "my round this time" thing often, yes.

But if I offered, I suck it up and pay graciously.