Dick sat at the desk in his room, computer pulled up to a blank Word document. The clean white surface of the page mocked him, the brightness hurting his eyes. He thumped his elbows on the desk to either side of the laptop's keyboard, his fingers massaging his temples. He sighed heavily again. How was he supposed to write an essay on rhetoric in modern times? He closed his eyes briefly before subconsciously reaching toward the beige cup to his right, warm to the touch and with a small green lady emblazoned in the logo on the side. Taking a long drink, he was glad he had thought to stop and get a coffee on his way home. It was four in the morning, but Gotham's coffee shops were used to keeping odd hours, in case one of their heroes needed a late night pick-me-up, in costume or not (but if they weren't in costume, then the coffee shops didn't know that they were them and… nope, too much to think about - nevermind). And between patrols with Batman, training, and the recent missions with the Team, that was exactly what Dick needed.

He put the cup down, letting out yet another sigh. He really did not want to write this essay. Who cares about English rhetoric in everyday life? But Bruce expected nothing but his best, and was adamant he kept his grades up. Bruce claimed it was for his cover life, but Dick had a nagging feeling that it was more than that – it was a point of pride. If he was honest with himself, Dick would have to say that, even if Bruce were not as stubborn as he was, Dick would force himself to do it anyway. His grades and his cover life were points of pride for him as much as they were for Bruce.

So, out of sheer spite, and with a smirk befitting the young troll, he began to type.

"For many of us and for much of the time, our most pressing and constant concerns are not with formal politics or large philosophical problems, but with our daily habits of eating, drinking, conversing, working and all the myriad of other activities that make up our lives in the everyday. The decisions we make, the actions we take…" Immediately upon typing this, Dick thought these words would make good song lyrics. His exhausted mind latched onto this thought and left him humming a mindless tune, these words running through his head at sporadic intervals.

"…the conversations we have on this most mundane level are the warp and woof of who we are. Our identities cannot be said to exist outside of these little actions, these minute-by-minute performances. Rhetorical analysis of the everyday, then, seems to be a crucial activity for those of us determined to understand the material ways rhetoric constrains and enables our subjectives."

He wasn't trying to make his essay sound condescending or use over-the-top elevated speech… okay, maybe he was. No, he definitely was. That's what Ms. Beech got for assigning this dumb paper, though.

Downing another swig of coffee, his fingers resumed their mad dash across the keyboard, churning out what had to have been the strangest essay there ever was. About coffee.

"Coffee becomes the centerpiece of the seeming naturalness of Starbucks and also serves as one way in which the naturalness of consumption is thoroughly embodied. This materially embodied rhetoric of the natural begins with the smell and the sound of the shop. The smell of fresh ground and brewed coffee immediately lets the visitor know that this is a coffee shop, and what is more the smell, while culturally encoded, is one that may seem natural in particularly powerful ways. What the smell immediately tells the visitor is that the coffee is "fresh," a sense that is closely connected to "natural" (it is hard to think of a soda as being "fresh," for example). A material process of transformation emphasizes the naturalness of coffee releasing the fragrance of coffee that accentuates coffee's materiality." Honestly, Dick was struggling to refrain from laughing aloud at the sheer amount of utter B.S. his mind was able to spew onto the page, especially in his current mental state. Vaguely he wondered if Ms. Beech was even going to accept this, let alone give him a passing grade.

He chuckled.

Oh well.

-DG—

A week later, Dick sat in his English class, and Ms. Beech proclaimed that she was going to pass back the class's papers. She handed Dick's back to him, and he automatically flipped to the last page – she always wrote the paper's grade on the back of the second to last page, keeping it from being seen in passing by prying eyes. Immediately, he noticed that there was more written there than just his grade… far more.

Dick, the note read, I was thoroughly impressed with your work! I've started to get used to the astounding amount of thought you put into each assignment, and you managed to wow me again! I can't imagine the amount of time you must have spent to think of and write this breathtaking work of art. Have you ever thought about publication?

Dick almost burst into laughter, barely managing to hold it in. Those five minutes he had spent thinking of a topic certainly felt like an eternity, but really? Ms. Beech was certainly way more excited about his last-minute essay than she should have been.

It was the last couple of paragraphs that really got me, to be honest. I can't wait to see where you go in life! ~Ms. Beech

His eyes scanned over the last paragraph. "Without the initiation, Starbucks is mysterious and a little intimidating. But with education, the mystery wears off and the knowledge needed to be a successful Starbuckian is learned.

"Coffee, in particular espresso, is more than just coffee; it has heart, soul and body. As such, coffee is something with which you can fall in love; it is a drink that can talk back." Dick blinked in surprise. He didn't even remember writing that. He must have been so tired that his mind went gallivanting off to unknown places. Oh, well. As long as he got a good – eighty six?

Aw, man!

Apparently, as good as his essay was, Ms. Beech had taken off for grammatical errors and his use of a few made-up words. Honestly, English wasn't his first language. Sure, he was much better now than when he first started learning it, but with multiple different languages in his head, of course he was bound to forget a few rules! With the shining review Ms. Beech gave his essay, he thought he would have at least gotten an A!

So I had to read this essay for my English class, "Joe's Rhetoric: Finding Authenticity at Starbucks," by Greg Dickenson. My mind, upon seeing the author's name, automatically switched the letters around, and so I read that it had been written by Dick Grayson. An obvious mistake, one that everyone would make, right? Fortunately, that little slipup made the whole essay a lot less dry and boring! And I got a story out of it! Yay! Hope you enjoyed!

~Mirnava