This is what I learned from a bartender named Timmy that made me doubt that kid behind the counter when he said, “100%.”
Timmy wasn’t a bad guy. It’s just that Timmy liked to make things up. Maybe that is overstating it a bit. He didn’t make up important facts. He was honest about things like his name, his employment and his relationship status. And when one is talking about the people who work in bars, none of those are a given.
I once worked with a cocktail waitress at a Mexican restaurant named Marguerite. Her name was a wonderful conversation starter, considering that Marguerite is the French version of Margarita, which of course is Spanish for Daisy. And margaritas are actually a daisy, which is a type of drink featuring a liquor, a citrus juice and a fruit syrup. It would be nearly two years before I learned that her name wasn’t Marguerite, or Margarita, or even Daisy. It was Rose, which seemed weird for a variety of reasons. But things like that come with the territory.
But Timmy wasn’t like that. Timmy just didn’t understand statistics. He was a good bartender; he just had a problem with certainty. Or rather uncertainty. His two favorite phrases were “100%” and “absolutely.”
“Is this gluten free?” somebody would ask, as somebody always does.
“100%,” Timmy would say.
“Uh, Timmy, that has Worcestershire sauce in it,” I or someone else would have to interject.
“So?” he asked.
“Our Worcestershire sauce isn’t gluten free,” I had to remind him.
“It isn’t?” Timmy responded.
“It has malt vinegar in it, and malt vinegar has gluten,” I said.
It wasn’t that Timmy was malicious. He was just lazy. Not in the usual physical way, but more in the intellectual way. And surety is certainly easier than checking.
English philosopher Bertrand Russell once posited that, “The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world is that the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
And Timmy was certainly cocksure.
“All bourbon is made in Kentucky,” Timmy once said.
“Are you sure?” asked the customer.
“Absolutely,” he responded.
“Uh, Timmy, bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States,” I said, quietly, so as not to embarrass him.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Pretty sure,” I said.
Sometimes the best answer is, “I don’t know; let me find out.” Because nothing shatters trust like speaking in absolutes and then being wrong. And that goes as equally for English philosophers as it does for American bartenders.
“100%,” said the receptionist at the radiology lab.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” she said.
Well, that was certainly certain. I turned and walked out the door. But for some reason, the memory of Timmy popped into my head. So, I turned around and went back into the office.
“Hi,” I said to the same receptionist. “I’m not trying to be a pest here, but could you just humor me and double check on that?”
“I said I was certain,” she said.
“I know, but if you don’t mind,” I replied.
Ten minutes later, the receptionist’s certainty had given way to uncertainty.
“What was your name again?” she asked.
Some vigorous typing on the computer in front of her ensued.
“I guess they don’t have your x-rays,” she said.
“Huh,” I said.
Which is exactly what I said to the kid at the coffee counter too. Right before I made him double check.
Leaving me with these thoughts:
• The more you learn, the less certain you become.
• ”Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd,” once opined Voltaire.
• The chances of being killed by a squirrel are infinitesimally tiny, but they are never 100%.
• A rose by another name can actually smell just as sweet. Especially if that name happens to be daisy.
Jeff Burkhart hosts ‘The Barfly Podcast.’ More at jeffburkhart.net.
