Maybe the Essex Street Market should open on Sundays, if they want to not get done in by the new Whole Foods. Human beings shopping for the food on a Sunday? I know, it's crazy talk, what is this innovation that Whole Foods is pioneering? How will you ever compete with those kind of ideas?
And that adorable and filthy little mailbox-fax-copy shop on First Avenue between 9th and 10th. You're so handy when one just needs to buy a stamp to send the rent! Except when I'm on my cell on a business call, and when I walk in, the counterboy makes the international "no cell phones allowed" gesture—because I'd missed the HUGE "NO CELL PHONES" sign on the door. Sure I hate the girls who yap on the phones everywhere—but you know what? My phone call is actually more important than your serenity or else I wouldn't be on the phone. Guess what? You're photocopying things for a living, so why don't you get off your own mental cellphone high horse and shut the hell up and sell me a marked-up stamp already?
And dear Puerto Rico Coffee [Oops: I mean Porto Rico, as the commenters point out] on St. Mark's Place—gee, maybe you should have actually opened at 8 a.m. this morning when you said you would, not at 8:40, after I was walking back home with coffee from SOMEWHERE ELSE. Oh were you busy sleeping in? Guess what, the "owner-operators" of Starbucks at 9th and 2nd weren't.
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