The danger of speaking in absolutes

“One hundred percent,” said the kid behind the counter, which made me doubt him almost immediately.

There are no absolutes in a complex world. And I learned that from a bartender named Timmy.

Timmy wasn’t a bad guy. It’s just that Timmy liked to make things up. Maybe that’s 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 you’re 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, Margarita or even Daisy. It was Rose, which seemed weird for a variety of reasons. But if you work in bars long enough, you too will eventually find a “Bobby” that becomes a “Doug” and an “Andrea” who becomes a “Vivian.” It all comes 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.”

There’s an old saying that 90% of all statistics uttered in a bar are made up on the spot. I think that percentage is even higher among bartenders.

“Is this gluten-free?” somebody would ask.

“One hundred percent,” Timmy would say.

“Uh, Timmy, that has Worcestershire sauce in it,” I or someone else would have to interject.

“So?”

“Our Worcestershire sauce isn’t gluten-free,” I had to remind him.

“It isn’t?”

“It has malt vinegar in it, and malt vinegar has gluten.”

It wasn’t that Timmy was malicious. He was just lazy. And surety is certainly easier than checking.

English philosopher Bertrand Russell once posited that “in the modern world 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 said.

“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.” 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.

“One hundred percent,” 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, as well as the accompanying thought that if my X-rays didn’t get where they were going, I was going to have to wait two more weeks for what I had already waited two weeks for. 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 said.

“It’ll be a few minutes before I can get to that,” she said, visibly annoyed.

“That’s fine,” I said, realizing that Timmy too was also often visibly annoyed when challenged.

I also remembered asking my doctor — the very doctor who needed the X-rays — what the prognosis for success on my procedure was. His exact answer was, “We’re hoping for 100%, but you never know. We’ll see how it goes.”

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. And then some more.

“I guess they don’t have them,” 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.

• Soy sauce too usually has wheat added to it for fermentation purposes. Tamari often doesn’t, but always check the label.

• “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%.

• And apparently a rose by another name can actually smell just as sweet, especially if that name happens to be daisy.