Living in a metropolitan area like New York or Washington, D.C., guarantees two things: The rent is too damn high and weekend brunch is a ritual.
For all the negative qualities big cities have — excessive traffic, little parking, uppity a**holes — weekend brunch is seen as the one of the few delightful constants. One where you and your friends can eat and get trashed a mild mimosa buzz for a reasonable price.
What’s there to hate?
The New York Times and freelance journalist David Shaftel are here to tell you.
In a Friday op-ed for the Times, Shaftel complains that brunch is just too much these days. It attracts too many “well-off young professionals” who are too rude and too happy eating brunch.
Here’s Shaftel wrapping his lips around brunch and sucking all the joy out of it:
Once the domain of Easter Sunday, it has become a twice-weekly symbol of our culture’s increasing desire to reject adulthood. It’s about throwing out not only the established schedule but also the social conventions of our parents’ generation. It’s about reveling in the naughtiness of waking up late, having cocktails at breakfast and eggs all day. It’s the mealtime equivalent of a Jeff Koons sculpture.
Only the most miserable freelancer would make a Jeff Koons reference in a column about hating brunch. (Who the hell is Jeff Koons?)
Shaftel, however, notes that he once loved brunch. So, what happened?
He explains: “I admit that I’ve found myself among the hordes on plenty of occasions. … But now that I have a young daughter…”
Ah-ha! The real culprit has been identified. It’s not that brunch is so bad. It’s that Shaftel is now a parent.
And like all parents, he now resents the freedom others have. The freedom to participate in the brunch that he once loved.
Maybe Shaftel can find a babysitter so that he may rekindle his lost happiness. Though, most of them probably already have brunch plans.
[Photo via Shutterstock]
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
