Popcorn in movie theaters. The sound of greedy, mindless hands reaching time and time again into that bowl of greasy nothingness only to be followed by the repulsive din of mindless mastication—all the while being inundated with sound and image of epic proportions! Have we no sense of decency?
Morons who run red lights, speed, pass you on the shoulder. Drivers assume that they are lone actors. And yet isn't it glaringly obvious that the roads are a collective, ethical system, that they run on the simplest of laws, rules, and regulations and that these laws, rules, and regulations are perhaps the one example of fairness and equality in our entire legal system?
Cafe Lattes. All right, all right. I know plenty of you heathens drink these. But, c'mon, it's a vat of milk with an inkling of coffee—a hint, a mild gesture, a dram. If you don't like coffee, don't drink it. Because the fact is you are holding up the lines for the rest of us. Making an espresso is fast. Pouring coffee is fast. Steaming milk is not fast. Now, I'm not in an enormous rush but waiting an extra 20 minutes in line to get my coffee because you need a steamed keg of shit drawn from a cow's teet just doesn't seem right to me.
Public bathrooms in America. Must we piss and shit under the watchful eyes of our brethren? Can't we have a moment of solitude to tend to our most private matters? What the fuck? Can't a stall door go all the way to the floor and then, for good measure, reach to the ceiling? Can't we just shit alone? In Barcelona, Spain, I encountered private bathrooms nearly everywhere I went. As far as I'm concerned, it is the only first world country (that I've been to, needless to say).
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2 comments:
I love lattes.
I love the privileging of milk over coffee. In fact, it is in the latte that coffee finally realizes in the mouth the promise betokened in the nose, and that precisely because it is reduced to a mere hint (In "The Anatomy of Disgust," William Miller writes about the disappointment that even the most avid coffee drinker must feel over the "falling away" between smell and taste -- enter the latte!).
I like the ritual of a latte, the paradox of slowing down to prepare something intended to speed you on your way. Getafix needs time to prepare the strength potion, and no, you may not have any, Obelix. And being a spiteful, disenfranchised son of a bitch, I relish this rare opportunity to bend others to my needs in a way sanctioned by the full freight of commerce.
Finally, your appeals to reductionism such as "shit drawn from a cow's teat" are unavailing: the bean was fertilized with literal cow shit (if you are lucky, petrochemicals if you are not), and the zoOedipal implications trouble me not at all.
"Cafe Lattes. All right, all right. I know plenty of you heathens drink these."
( lol )
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