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I have just read this sentence: "Usually I pick up Starbucks for my morning coffee because it's closer than my local coffee shop and I don't have to put on real clothes to drive through it..."

And I'm just. Staring into the distance in European. You DRIVE to get COFFEE before putting on your CLOTHES? You can't be bothered to put on clothes because you haven't had your morning coffee but you will DRIVE to a fully another location that isn't YOUR FUCKING HOUSE to get it??? You will operate. The machinery! On the roads, that you share with other people! To drive to a location?? When you could just make it at home??

I try not to judge but, dear reader, I am fucking judging 😶

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in reply to Sini Tuulia

Just marking this to come back to tomorrow over my home made pour over coffee from (relatively) ethical beans, that I make while wearing clothes, so I can feel appropriately smug
in reply to Sini Tuulia

They don’t see it. Driving is invisible to them. I complained to my parents that I hated having to drive everywhere when we visited them. “What are you talking about?” they said. “You guys have to drive to the store, drive to the golf course, drive to walk the dogs…” “Oh, that’s not driving, those are only five minutes [of driving] away.”
in reply to 🚲

@dx How does drive to walk the dog work? Is it lack of sidewalk? (Something I discovered in Toronto.)
@🚲
in reply to Nazim Bharmal

@nab26 They live on a busy road in an exurb. There is a sidewalk on one side now (a new addition), but it is unpleasant with the road noise. So they drive to one of several quieter roads and walk the dogs along those (which don’t have sidewalks, but also only have a few cars every hour)
in reply to 🚲

@dx @nab26 I live in DC and have never driven to get coffee here in 16 years. The Americans who live in drive-only suburbs like to tray and normalize their behavior and say stuff like, "oh, everybody does this", but there are huge cities that function mostly the same as cities everywhere else in the world as walkable/bikable places.
in reply to Will

@Will I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I’ve lived in both European and American cities, and while there are areas and enclaves within most (all?) American cities where you don’t require a car, there are also swaths of housing that do, even within the city. Something that is much rarer in European cities. I should add that many small European towns don’t require a car, which is VERY different from US/Canada.
@Will
in reply to Sini Tuulia

if you want to have your mind blown even more. Many drive throughs do not service people on foot or bikes. We are simply not people until we have an automobile. This was even true in early COVID vaccines, where many of the first places were drive throughs, and people not in cars were not allowed.
in reply to Sini Tuulia

As a Canadian I obviously know people just like this but personally I can't imagine leaving the house *before* getting a couple of cups of coffee into me first.
in reply to Le Néandertal sous benzo

To be fair to the typical American suburban dweller there's probably not a cafe within reasonable walking distance and even if there is it's likely on the other side of a six lane 55mph stroad and the nearest traffic controlled crossing is 2 miles in the wrong direction.