2005-11-25

Of Death, Starbuck's, and the end of Society.

The other day, an older gentleman was buying his morning cup of coffee at the local Starbucks. Upon exiting, he slouched onto the door, and finally collapsed to the ground, in the doorway. Concerned citizens confirmed the fact that he was indeed dead, after they tried to administer CPR to the poor gentleman. His body fell in such a way as to keep the door propped open. The paramedics were called.

To the owners surprise, customers kept on entering the store, blissfully stepping over the corpse, as if it wasn't there. They did this with the goal of getting their morning cup of coffee on their way to work. The owner of the store then went outside to keep people from stepping over the corpse of the poor old man. Here customers kept on yelling at him that they were on their way to work, and needed their morning joe. When he firmly told them that no, they couldn't disrespect the corpse for their fix, they firmly insisted then that he should bring them the coffee, himself stepping over the unfortunate corpse. Finally the owner was forced to erect a wall of patio furniture to keep the ghoulish patrons from intruding.

I was related this story by a delivery driver for Starbucks Coffee, which was related by an owner of a store in one of the nicer parts of the city, it is probably true, in that the driver is quite a reliable source.

Does anyone else find this story painfully depressing? A wretched story about the hollowness of modern society? I really cannot even put my self in the shoes of these idiots, is our society entering a state of pure naive egotism, a race of hedonistic sociopaths?

Please just think of this little modern parable, and what is says about us.

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