Today is the Day

I am quite familiar with Coffee Shop Culture. There's no pride in that sentence, I simply live in coffee shops. I understand what the clientele will look like. I know what 'cool' people order. I know what sorority girls order. I can tell a great deal about somebody by whether or not they put sugar and cream in their coffee. I know where to sit. I can tell who is there to study and work and who is there to be seen. There is a whole new culture surrounding these little coffee houses. And with culture comes etiquette.

One of the things I have come to sadly expect in coffee shops are those who don't understand the rules. Rule number one: Don't make/answer phone calls within the walls of the coffee shop. You take that trash outside. If somebody calls and you desperately need to take it, walk outside. No one wants to hear your isolated, loud, terribly selfish conversation 2 feet away. And yet people do it. They do it consistently.

I have come to expect the etiquette to be broken simply because IT ALWAYS HAPPENS. Even this morning, while I found myself in a local coffee house, someone picked up a phone call and carried on an entire conversation in the seat next to me. How in the world am I expected to concentrate in these conditions? And here’s the thing, when the phone call ended, this guy got up and left. That was his sole purpose of being in the coffee shop – to take the phone call. Unbelievable. Take that trash to the streets.

Today was the day where I almost made a phone call and talked on it as obnoxiously loud as I could to teach everyone in there a lesson. “Hey, what’s up?….oh, I’m just hanging out in a coffee shop….nothing…..ha! ha! ha!…..sure……no, what time are you going to the thing?.....no, nobody else is here but me......ha! ha! ha!.....oh, that's a riot!!!"

You people with cell phones are ruining the coffee shop culture because you are breaking the coffee shop etiquette. Put down the phone. Take it to the streets if you must.