Just a few days ago, I went to a coffee shop that I visit when my favorite shop is closed. Not great coffee, but since it was hot I wanted a smoothie anyway. I was working on a project past deadline, and I absolutely had to complete it. It was about 8:00; my was putting my daughter to bed, and since my presence in the house can sometimes get my daughter worked up at bedtime, I decided to work in the coffee shop. The atmosphere of this particular coffee shop is pretty decent. There is a mixture of incandescent and dim fluorescent lighting. They have several cafe tables with comfortable chairs. Local art hangs on the walls, and there is a large seating area at the center of the shop with two large chairs, a coffee table, magazines, and a sofa. It's a nice place with the fragrance of coffee beans hanging in the air.
I ordered my smoothie, grabbed a seat at one of the tables, opened my Powerbook, and sat down to start writing. My smoothie was up, so I stopped writing, grabbed the drink and headed back to my seat. Upon returning to my seat, my attention was drawn to a boisterous voice coming through the door. I looked up to see that the woman's frame matched her voice. I don't mean she was obese. I mean she was a large-framed woman. She was dressed like some sort of glammed-up hippie with knee-high high-heeled boots. She was a presence that demanded one's attention. I tried to ignore her. But then two other women came in and joined her. When the other two ladies arrived, they were carrying a sound system and a large keyboard. The conversation that ensued was even louder than the first woman's pronouncements. It became obvious that this was some sort of music group.
Now music groups in coffee shops are normal. Just two days before, I was leading a Bible study in this same coffee shop to the tune of a really spacey yet jazzy instrumental three-piece. But this act was nothing like that. While I am sitting there attempting to block out their obnoxious conversation, this woman starts making demands. She asks for the tables in the back to be moved to the front near the music (in her words) "so that we can have more seating." She asks for the lights to be changed - the light I was using! Then she had the audacity to crank up the keyboard and ask, "Hey...can you in the back hear this keyboard?"
Here's the thing: she assumed that everyone in the shop was there to hear her. How is it that we can be so egotistical? How could this woman actually think that her music is desirable to everyone at any given time. I'm sure her music was fine, but I was not there in that coffee shop to listen to a concert. I was there to work. Coffee shops are for working, talking, sipping, reading, and sometimes doing all of that to a soundtrack provided by a band somewhere in the background. This egotistical woman somehow got it in her head that her presence changed all that. This coffee shop suddenly had no seats away from the band. The lighting was being changed. And the background music was being moved to the forefront. The coffee shop was no longer a coffee shop. It was now a music venue.
Now I wish I could tell you that I stood up, grabbed one of the tables and moved it to the back of the room. I wish I could tell you that I turned the lights back on. I really wish I could tell you that I walked up to the woman, told her I was not there to hear her, and asked her to turn it down. But I didn't. I got up, closed my computer, took the rest of my smoothie, and walked out the door.
Why do we allow people this kind of social irresponsibility?
