{"id":5437,"date":"2012-01-02T03:52:46","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T11:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=5437"},"modified":"2012-01-03T00:23:17","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T08:23:17","slug":"its-just-a-shot-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=5437","title":{"rendered":"It's just a shot away<\/q>"},"content":{"rendered":"

For dinner last night, I went to a local restaurant that is part of a larger chain. I was given a number to place on my table, and a cup to fill with tea or with soda at a dispenser.<\/p>

I placed the number on a table, filled the cup, and returned to the table to look through an art-supply catalogue that I had brought with me.<\/p>

The catalogue is about 8 in<\/abbr> × 10 in<\/abbr> × ½ in<\/abbr> (20.3 cm<\/abbr> × 24.5 cm<\/abbr> × 1.3 cm<\/abbr>) — roughly the size of a residential telephone directory for a medium-sized American city — and illustrated with pictures of, well, art supplies.<\/p>

At about the time that I'd got to the mannikins<\/a>, I had emptied my cup, so I went back to get more tea. As I was taking care of that, I noticed that my food was delivered to my table.<\/p>

When I returned, I discovered that some fellow had happily sat himself down before the plate, his smart<\/q> phone to one side, and was looking at the pictures of mannikins in the catalogue<\/em>.<\/p>

So, suddenly, he hears a deep<\/a>, very angry voice, asking You're going to take my<\/em> food?<\/q> and he looks up to see me. I'm not sure just how I looked to him, but probably like someone on the edge of violence. After a momentary pause, his mind apparently now wonderfully concentrated, he got-up quickly, explaining that he was at the next table, and thought that they'd brought his food while he was away.<\/p>

Let's back-up a sec: This fellow hadn't merely mistaken one table for another — something that I suspect most of us, and certainly I, would be capable of doing — he was looking at the pictures in the rather large art-supply catalogue<\/em>. One doubts that he actively imagined that a restaurant were in the habit of presenting such a catalogue along with one's meal. Rather, his mind was simply disengaged<\/em>. Here's the food! And, what's this? Oo! Shiny!<\/em><\/q><\/p>

I have such low expectations of the mindfulness of other people that I believed his claim immediately, and indeed his order was brought to that next table not long afterwards. But I didn't much enjoy my meal nor the rest of the catalogue; my body was still geared-up for a fight.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For dinner last night, I went to a local restaurant that is part of a larger chain. I was given a number to place on my table, and a cup to fill with tea or with soda at a dispenser. I placed the number on a table, filled the cup, and returned to the table […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[334,202,1099,1100],"class_list":["post-5437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-public","tag-everyday-absurdity","tag-everyday-frustrations","tag-mindfulness","tag-mindlessness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}