New rule mandates a brief existential reflection before service
PARIS — In a development that officials insist is entirely under control, the city has once again demonstrated its singular genius for turning the ordinary into the operatic. As carried across The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, the affair has gripped the capital.
New rule mandates a brief existential reflection before service
In a move described as a natural extension of national values, France has introduced a requirement that customers offer a brief existential reflection before being served coffee, on the grounds that the unexamined espresso is not worth drinking.
The reflection need not be profound, officials clarified, but must demonstrate a minimal engagement with the meaninglessness of existence. Cafes have reported that service times have lengthened considerably, though the quality of the resulting conversations has improved.
Officials Respond
A spokesman noted that the requirement merely formalised what thoughtful French citizens had always done, and that the unreflective coffee-drinker had no place in the republic.
Cultural commentators were quick to situate the affair within a grand tradition, tracing its lineage through several centuries of national temperament, and concluding, as cultural commentators reliably do, that it confirmed everything they had always said.
The matter was referred, as such matters invariably are, to a committee, which announced that it would deliberate at length, resolve nothing, and produce a report of considerable elegance and no consequence whatever, to general national satisfaction.
A rival publication ran a lengthy editorial on the matter, concluding that it revealed a deep truth about the national character, though it declined, in the manner of such editorials, to say precisely which truth or which character.
By the weekend the affair had inspired three op-eds, a satirical song, and a philosophical essay of some forty pages, none of which addressed the original question, all of which were widely praised for their elegance.
Observers noted that the affair had divided the capital into the usual factions, those who regarded it as a catastrophe, those who regarded it as a triumph, and the larger group who regarded it as an excellent reason to extend lunch.
A poll conducted in the manner the moment demanded found that a substantial majority of citizens held strong views on the matter, an equally substantial majority declined to say what those views were, and a small but vocal minority had already written a manifesto.
The development was hailed in some quarters as a defence of civilisation itself, and in others as its final collapse, with the truth, as so often in the capital, lying somewhere in the vicinity of a very good glass of wine.
Cultural commentators were quick to situate the affair within a grand tradition, tracing its lineage through several centuries of national temperament, and concluding, as cultural commentators reliably do, that it confirmed everything they had always said.
The matter was referred, as such matters invariably are, to a committee, which announced that it would deliberate at length, resolve nothing, and produce a report of considerable elegance and no consequence whatever, to general national satisfaction.
For more in this vein, McSweeney’s obliges.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
