DOING IT RIGHT IN THE MODERN WORLD: Maybe 25 years ago my Chicago grandmother came to visit our family in Ohio. Gramma, as we called her, had lived downtown her whole life, and so she seemed wide-eyed at much of our medium-small town existence.

Her greatest and most celebrated fish-out-of-water moment of the trip came at McDonald's. She stood back from the counter, pondering the menu, mouthing the various item names and furtively (and, of course, futilely) scanning for the "cocktail" section. Finally she stepped forward, ready to order:

"I'll have a cheeseburger, hon, medium rare, and a baked potato."

The needle dragged across the record. The counter-simp stifled a smirk. All around her, patrons gaped and mumbled. I distinctly remember a young boy around my age repeating it to his parents. "She said medium RARE!" And another: "She said baked potato!"

Meanwhile my brothers and I shrunk into the bright yellow and orange scenery, denying our genetic link to the woman who -- gasp -- didn't know how to order at McDonald's! (Today I realize it's a small miracle she didn't ask for a patty melt, compounding our horror.)

I had such a moment again this morning. Standing at Starbuck's, my automaton-like order at the ready ("tallsoylatteandicedlemonloafpoundcakeplease"), my money pre-counted, I found myself behind an older couple (they were maybe 58). He was dressed like a banker or an undertaker, with his hair meticulously wetted and sloped across his pale skull; she resembled an attractive young blonde secretary from the movies, although her face and her clothes and her hair were not new enough, not to mention altogether too pressed.

"One coffee," the undertaker intoned, his zen-like understatement drawing quizzical glances from the baristas.

"Are these pastries fresh, dear?" asked the old young secretary.

Meanwhile all around them the clued-in sighed and shuffled, wondering how it was possible in this day and age not to have your Starbuck's order down pat.

Somewhere I'm sure Gramma felt vindicated.