(Insert soylent milk joke here)
From Ed Rush,, asking “Why would he need extra room to drink a cup of coffee-like substance?”
As someone who never learned to like coffee–when I lived in Canada I used to joke that I could never get my Canadian citizenship because I couldn’t even stand Coffee Crisp–I’m sure I don’t know either!
Comics I Don't Understand 
My guess is that “Do you need room?” means “Do you want a bit less coffee in your cup so that there’s room for additions.” But I’m not a coffee drinker either so that remains a guess.
Yes, that’s what it is. Leave room for cream or other additions, this apparently being the sort of coffee place that lets you put your own stuff in rather than having the employee do it.
Indeed, yes. That’s a common question when buying coffee in the US. But let’s also take a moment to observe that Jeremy’s dad, a lawyer in a large firm, is complaining to a barista about his financial situation. I bet he doesn’t tip, either.
Walt Duncan is an orthodontist, not a lawyer.
The BLS from 2023 says that the mean pay for orthodontists was $243,620.
Walt is whining about space, not money. He could afford a bigger house, but why? It would get stuffed soon enough.
I bet he doesn’t tip, either.
Starbucks made a gross profit of $25.5 billion last year.
It’s not your job to pay their employees.
Tipping culture sucks in general, but this push to include new categories within it (counter service) is really irksome to me — corporate welfare is bad enough, but this is corporate charity!
Right, an orthodontist. I confused him with a different upper-class comic strip dad. Either way, he’s complaining to someone who is almost certainly in a much worse position than himself.
Lark, the right way to fight tipping culture is by avoiding places that expect tips and by petitioning legislatures to do away with the lower minimum wage for tip jobs. Accepting (reasonable) service from someone earning “tip” wages but then not tipping is just exploitation. I agree we should demand that companies pay fixed wages, especially since tipping and levels of service are now completely divorced from each other, but stiffing the least powerful person in the equation is not a way to make the world better.
I had a friend named Rich who could come up with perfectly-deadpan responses like this.
At the coffee shop:
Barista: What would you like?
Rich: Medium coffee.
Barista: Cream?
Rich: No, coffee.
I hope ol’ Rich doesn’t want cream, because it would be kind of awkward to ask for after that.
Comedian Taylor Negron had a bit about being in a restaurant, and the waitress says to him, “You scream?” This then goes into a diatribe from him about the world and we should all scream, so maybe he did scream!
The waitress glares at him and says, “Do. You. Use. Cream.”
To answer the question up top: Walt needs more room in his life and his house. He is humorously misinterpreting the barista’s question about coffee in a larger, philosophical manner.