So, I recently realized that a couple of ‘factoids’ I’ve been telling people are actually not true.
First, shorts cups at Starbucks. I had never seen these before I visited Seattle in August of 2006, so I assumed they were a Seattle-only item. However, I talked to a Barrista today at the West Springfield Starbucks, and he told me that back in the day (like 5-6 years ago), short was the small size and tall was the medium. Then, they added the venti (which just means 20 in eyetalian, because it’s 20 oz) and made the tall the smallest menu size. Apparently, all locations still have the short cups, but they’re normally hidden away and not listed on the menu. I didn’t really start drinking Starbucks drinks until I started working after grad school (2003), so it would make sense that I missed the changeover from small.
Next, we have the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Some teacher in my youth told me that the character was ‘mad’ (crazy), because of mercury poisoning from the mercury he used to treat hats. However, Wikipedia tells me that the character is probably based on a real life person. Also, real symptoms of mercury poisoning are “timidity and a desire to remain unobserved” which was not how the Mad Hatter behaved.