John Scalzi covered this very well over 13 years ago on his blog, in a post titled, Being Poor. I was surprised that Holly Wood didn’t seem to be familiar with it, since it’s had pretty wide circulation over the years.

We had plenty of food, the mortgage was paid

You could always ask the barista to make you a grande in a tall cup. When they look at you funny, just smile, “Grandes are BOGO, talls aren’t.” Most partners I know would say, “Gotcha. Grande in a tall cup, coming up!” You’re paying for the more expensive of the two drinks, anyway, so it shouldn’t matter if your…

None of the above, actually. I’m an LMFT in training. Or not, at the moment. Small crisis of confidence, existential angst, and lack of clarity about my path forward led me to take some time off to figure things out.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of caramel in drinks, too sweet for me. Even the caramel brûlée flavor, which had some nice burnt sugar notes, was just too much. But in my experience, the people — mostly youngsters — asking for the drizzle all over the inside of the cup were doing it for looks, not flavor.

If you say so.

That’s only two. Counting is not your strong suit, I see.

It could be that they sold enough iced coffee that they left the pitcher out instead of opening the fridge for every second customer. That’s not how it’s supposed to be done, but it happens. Just like the milk is supposed to go back in immediately, but when there’s a line of 5 people at the register it’s going to get…

Heh.

I will, thanks. With a venti mocha.

You certainly seem hung up on what you consider to be the exact meaning of words even though they don’t mean that in practice. It has nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with clarity. Do you want a “large” Grande latte, since as you noted that’s the meaning of the word in Italian? Or do you want the…

There’s one big exception (I can think of) to the above: Americanos get an additional shot of espresso.

Yeah, I almost always order my drink at “kid temp”, so I can drink it immediately. I have scar tissue in my mouth from a dental thing and can’t tolerate really hot drinks.

The sweetener comes in packets, so you’re good there. Just tell them “two sugars” or whatever. You can add it yourself or have the barista do it as they make the drink. My husband likes raw sugar, and it doesn’t dissolve so well if you add it to the drink after it’s made, so he asks for “two raw sugars in the bottom,…

And steam the milk by ear, not jam it under a spout and let it do all the work for you. I can still get a pitcher of milk to temp within 2 degrees just by the sound it makes.

There’s already caramel in the drink itself. These people want their drinks to look pretty and fancy, it’s not for flavor.

Also, the people really judging you are the folks in the line behind you

Please do. Your therapist will judge the shit out of you. We’re trained not to, but that doesn’t mean we won’t anyway.

But now you’ll know for the next time. The barista is not being snarky, they are repeating the order (as they are trained to do) using the terms they are required to in order to minimize confusion. Continuing to order it the other way just makes the whole process longer.

the lid opening will have been placed directly opposite the cup seam. Real baristas do this on purpose so the cup won’t leak on you.