Snobbery at its best

It's official, I'm a snob.

The categories of local inferiority to which I turn up my nose spread wide and far, but then a snob is not one to spare much, is she?

For starters, I find myself wrinkling my nose at the clothes on passerbys' backs as they walk pass me in malls. Not that I have a reaction so adversed I am beyond civil to someone who's garbed in what I sometimes cannot believe to have passed as clothing -- and I must clarify I don't entirely write someone off based on first impression, although I have no qualms either saying first impressions play a part in perception -- but seriously, the shabby finishing of some fabrics, and more horifically, the prints they come in, are just painful to my eye. Marry that to the (lack of) production quality, and -- hey presto! -- it's aesthetic vomit at its best. As if the actual style of the garment is not already an insult to taste itself.

But don't mind my shallow wallowings. That is only second to enduring: "just dial 5672-aye aye nai nai today!" repeatedly on the radio. I would cite more examples, but I'm not in the mood for more self-infliction.

It was funny, I guess, the first time someone (I won't say who) needed to get her "so-syor-lor-gee" textbook. I said: "WHAT?" not because I being a snob; I didn't understand what it was for the first three seconds to turn my nose up to it. On the fourth second, I had tears in my eyes from a combination of realization and disbelief. And while I am resigned to going to "res-tor-ren" for dinners the remainder of my stay, I don't know how long I can keep my distaste in check before I get hit for being too disdainful. Go the lahs all the way; I have nothing against local flavour, but I think there shouldn't be room for pronounciation to be tampered with. Especially pronounciation that makes you sound stupid.

Now I don't mean to be deliberately belittling, say what you will, but with some types of local produce there is just no comprison to its imported varieties, and that's that. I think I was almost clobbered the other day when I took a sip out of a boxdrink of Milo and went instictively: "Yuk!"

How is it my fault if the milk here is sour, and the coffee, oh god, the coffee. Now that is the matter that started it all.

I can appreciate that some things are simply better coming from some places rather than others. Like I don't expect local milk to be creamy and rich, I don't expect local coffee to match the standard of its other bolder, more aromatic counterparts. Being able to differentiate quality is having the skill of discernment, not thinking I am too good for something lesser. If what I need is something better, then I get it from where it is available.

My problem, then, is having to spend ten dollars every single day at commercialised American coffee chains, on something which should but isn't the way it's meant to be. Now I haven't written off local joints without first giving (way too) many a chance, but I think I have wasted enough expectation and suffering on them, so I moved on to (what should be) the trusty coffee chains. A girl can only put in that much effort, and endure so much lactose-intolerance, before going totally mental.

For the life of me, I am already paying you ten bloody dollars, and I don't begrudge you that, but I want a strong soy latte without the foam, is that so terribly impossible? It isn't such a tall order that you cannot give me soy milk -- not sugared soy, good grief! And frothed, not poured straight in for the love of mankind (only the local stores, thank God)! -- and be generous with the coffee. But my gripe only just begins.

The response is always, always the same: "Extra shot?"
"No. Just draw the coffee longer."
"Uh..."
"Let the coffee drip for longer, so if you usually fill it up to here, now let it fill up to here."

I don't know if the worser crime is that some places simply refuse to comply, or that the shots are already sitting there, made ready and waiting before prehistoric times and cold as the should-be-corpse who made it, and waiting to be tipped into my coffee cup.

It is pure adulteration of coffee making, I swear.

My patience for stupid things is close to none, and I have no desire to want to inculcate it, either. Don't tell me the suffering is good for you what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger crap. I have a brain, and I use it to separate common sense from plain stupidity, so I have no desire to tolerate monkeys acting as barristas.

My patience runs thinnest when they want to charge me for that second shot which didn't even come from a fresh draw. If each shot had its dedicated lot of ground, at least I can appreciate why, but take two lots out of the the one and try to double charge me for it, and you have it coming.

Ugh. My snobbery is really just an adherence to some level of standard, clearly of which these fools have none.