For someone who will get on a plane to any country in the world, I am not very good at going to new stores or restaurants. There is always a little part of me that thinks, "But... is this a store where they allow people like me?" And that's funny, because I pretty much top the world in ridiculous levels of privilege (class, race, nationality, education; everything but gender, and even there I have some privilege: I comfortably conform, in appearance and behavior, to the gender I appear to be). The only place I have ever lived that might have stores that do not welcome people like me is New York, and that is only because New York has Old Money.
We don't really do Old Money in the Midwest or the Northwest. We are pretty firmly egalitarian: we all worked service jobs in high school. We all pump our own gas/petrol. We all shop at the same stores. If you can pay for it, you can have it, out here. It's the snobbery of the middle class of Middle America: we are more likely to look down on you for being a snob than we are to look down on you for not having money.
And yet, I still feel shy about walking into a new store. So I heard about this coffee shop that I wanted to try, and today I went for a walk-by. I just wanted to see what it was I would be facing when I braved walking in. I felt shy even walking along the row of shops where it was supposed to be. I felt shy asking an employee of one of the stores about it. It turns out, though, that the person who told me the location was all wrong, and tomorrow I will have to brave a whole new corner in search of it.
I read about it online, though, and I am pretty sure that it was intended for people just like me, namely, coffee snobs. It helps to have a mental picture of this place I am going.
On my walk home from the unsuccessful walk-by of the coffee shop, I passed a woman who held flowers in each hand. "Here!" she said, as she approached me, "Smell this!" and she stuck a bunch of lilac into my face.
We don't really do Old Money in the Midwest or the Northwest. We are pretty firmly egalitarian: we all worked service jobs in high school. We all pump our own gas/petrol. We all shop at the same stores. If you can pay for it, you can have it, out here. It's the snobbery of the middle class of Middle America: we are more likely to look down on you for being a snob than we are to look down on you for not having money.
And yet, I still feel shy about walking into a new store. So I heard about this coffee shop that I wanted to try, and today I went for a walk-by. I just wanted to see what it was I would be facing when I braved walking in. I felt shy even walking along the row of shops where it was supposed to be. I felt shy asking an employee of one of the stores about it. It turns out, though, that the person who told me the location was all wrong, and tomorrow I will have to brave a whole new corner in search of it.
I read about it online, though, and I am pretty sure that it was intended for people just like me, namely, coffee snobs. It helps to have a mental picture of this place I am going.
On my walk home from the unsuccessful walk-by of the coffee shop, I passed a woman who held flowers in each hand. "Here!" she said, as she approached me, "Smell this!" and she stuck a bunch of lilac into my face.
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