Jeff

Coffee shops are ostensibly places of business where humans can purchase absurdly overpriced hot and cold beverages, as well as pastries etc. that are passed off as fresh, but are actually wheeled in on “truck day” by a man with an artisanal beard who believes he’s far above such tasks. None of it matters, though. Not really. Because the physical products are not what attract the customers, it’s the embrace of pretension that indirectly pays the bills.

Out in the real world, for instance, a grown man would almost certainly be mocked and ridiculed for wearing red pants, and/or the kind of chunky eyeglasses that were issued to retarded children during the 1960s. But in a coffee shop, he’s the toast of the town. He can sit there with his legs crossed in a wildly affected manner while sporting a ludicrous costume, and be viewed in a favorable light. And that’s what the places are truly selling: admission to a pretentious asshole safe-house.

Coffee shops are generally small in size and feature carefully-matched mismatched furnishings to create an approximation of an artsy and bohemian atmosphere. Customers seem to believe they become a little more worldly and sophisticated by merely stepping across the threshold. Out in the parking lot, they might be spitting on the pavement, scratching their asses, or rolling their balls like a gambler at the craps table. But the moment they walk into a coffee shop they become delicate intellectuals with faint European overtones: “No worries, no worries…”

Most coffee shops offer a free wireless internet connection, which attracts “writers.” They arrive with their laptop computers, covered in stickers chosen to make the owners seem hip and mysterious, and sit for hours at prominent tables “writing.” Almost none of their projects will ever see the light of day (which is a bullet-dodged for the rest of us). Because the point is not to make actual progress on their dubious novels or screenplays, it is to be seen “writing.” However, the “author” will be more than happy to give you a synopsis of his project, and it will invariably contain phrases such as “experimental” and “non-linear,” and will often feature a serial killer character with a jaunty nickname. Something like Fleshlight, Muffin Man, or The Cropdusting Stranger.

Even though coffee is not the most important feature of a coffee shop, it does attract humans who like to pretend they are aficionados of the beverage. It is an enticing option for people who don’t want to go all-in with scarves and opinions about foreign films, but still possess an interest in being pompous and overblown. It requires a lot less effort to memorize a preposterous drink order that can be used to dazzle friends and co-workers than to haul a laptop across town and act pensive for several hours. Coffee snobbery is a popular and effective pretentious asshole workaround.

I hope this report has proven to be helpful. As always, I will be standing in the open field behind Dollar General Store every Thursday between midnight and 2 a.m., if you should have any follow-up questions.

This concludes today’s broadcast.

A grocery store is a place of business where humans exchange currency for food and other items. During earlier times they were quite small in size, and community-based. But today they’re often so sprawling a person can see the curvature of the Earth way off in the direction of the little old ladies hunched over thin, nearly-expired pork chops in the rear of the store. And the managers operate under a strict set of emasculating rules transmitted from an office building in Ohio or Florida, or someplace equally horrible.

The local managers are generally alcoholic male humans, with considerable mustaches. They are often friendly, especially with customers, but employ a team of nearly-as-mustached assistant managers who make the lives of their subordinates a living hell: hardened asshole pirates with names like Skeeter and Chuck, who would cut your fucking throat if they thought they could get away with it. Admittedly, this reporter may be relying a little too heavily on specific personal experience in this section of the report.

Modern grocery stores are carefully calculated affairs, created via market research and focus groups. They are finely tuned to encourage customers to part with as much money as possible and return again and again. They often feature recent forklift drivers dressed in chef costumes cooking in the middle of the store, and a bakery that continuously pumps appealing smells into the air. Despite these efforts, however, aggravations remain, due to the presence and involvement of human beings.

Several years ago, for instance, most grocery stores began making motorized carts available to people with disabilities, which is admirable. However, the original purpose was almost instantly hijacked by members of “The Abundance.” Draped in a full bolt of fabric and usually chewing, these overfed humans now monopolize the contraptions. They ride up and down the valley of salty snacks, and through the soda pop canyon, as the motors whine and labor under their enormous loads. Sometimes the drivers of these “swaddle wagons” will honk their horns at people with crutches clipped to their forearms, because they’re not dragging their legs fast enough past the Little Debbie endcaps.

See also “lard carts,” “fat trucks,” “jiggle jazzies.”

Additional aggravations include, but are not limited to, obnoxious husband and wife shopping teams, screaming shithead children, pleased-with-themselves moms in ski vests holding cups of coffee as fashion, people conducting animated conversations on their cell phones, oblivious entrance/exit/aisle blockers, people who stand in line for an extended period but are flummoxed and confused when it’s time to pay, overzealous zit-blasted self-checkout monitors, and enormous surging banks of intestinal gas so pungent they can bring a healthy man to his knees. For reasons not clearly understood, grocery stores withstand a sustained rectal pounding reminiscent of The London Blitz during World War II.

I hope this report has proven to be helpful. As always, I will be standing in the open field behind Dollar General Store every Thursday between midnight and 2 a.m., if you should have any follow-up questions.

This concludes today’s broadcast.