Saturday, November 21, 2015

the izz and izznt of coffee shops

a coffee shop is:
a space for [insert any number of activities that you already know a coffee shop is intended or useful or enjoyable for].

a coffee shop ain't:
a space for watching youtube (or lubetube or facebook or netflix or home recording) clips (of a hilarious cat or a most recent sexual partner or your kid's birthday party or a bit by Jimmy Fallon (gawdlovehim!) or your most favouritest TEDtalk or a tragic scene from last night's news) at a volume that any other human can detect with their ears, as though your phone were the television (or radio or computer or morse code transmitter) in your home living room (or bedroom or basement or bathroom...*flush*).

we've been here before. (remember the nail clipper? and Little Miss Dora the Explorer?) yet dogma seems necessary when it's motivated by a reverence for common courtesy.

while we're at it, we might as well cover a few other activites that just aren't ok in a coffee shop, since (apparently) nothing is too obvious. so, you heard it here first, folks: the coffee shop is, unfortunately, also not a space where you can:
-let your dog lift its leg for just a quick pee
-run an up-and-coming clown training program
-have sex
-pedal drugs (though orchestrating pyramid schemes -- provided they're cleverly disguised as self-confidence-boosting small-business ventures -- regularly proves to be a kosher practice)
-can preserves so you can enjoy peach slices or pickled eggs or strawberry-rhubarb jam all year round
-draw chalk outlines on the floor, as though the coffee shop were a crime scene
-hurl doughnuts (whether fresh or stale) or cranberry-bliss bars at someone seated across the room
-use a sharpie to draw movember moustaches on the faces of strangers' babies, claiming it's all in the name of prostate cancer awareness

the list goes on, of course. feel free to contribute your own.

and now back to translating...

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