And not a ratty thrift-store sort of coat, but the real deal. Waist-length and crisp white. Perfectly clean. Either fox or mink and very expensive looking. She wore it over a T-shirt with a pair of super-skinny, shiny track pants.
It made me nervous to be consuming a burrito in such close proximity to this coat. I’ve been known to have a wide blast radius when I’m really enjoying my food.
It was one of those hot summer SF days of late that seems like it’s never going to end — and then at 5:30 p.m., cue the wind. It’s easy to get caught off guard in skimpy summer garb. So perhaps there was a practical aspect to the coat — just as she was running out the door to meet friends for dinner, realizing that the weather had turned, with no time to plan a whole new outfit, she grabbed a mink from the closet. We’ve all been there.
There I was at Little Chihuahua in the Lower Haight with a friend, eating my totally delicious, overpriced, wild-mushroom burrito with organic corn chips. (Scoff at my gentrified burrito if you like, but remember—if you happen to be in that neighborhood, it’s by far the cheapest option for a sit-down dinner.)
Not only that, but the coat was placed on the back of a chair a few feet away from the salsa bar.
Miss Fancycoat sat at the table next to me. So close, I could have reached out and stroked those luxurious hairs with my salsa-stained fingers.
It made me nervous to be consuming a burrito in such close proximity to this coat. That’s putting a lot of faith in my ability to eat without spreading the love. I’ve been known to have a wide blast radius when I’m really enjoying my food.
Not only that, but the coat was placed on the back of a chair a few feet away from the salsa bar! There were seven kinds of salsas in the salsa bar, each a different flavor and intensity of heat, all of them splattery and stainy. Also, you’ve heard of the invisible fecal aura that surrounds us all? The salsa aura in that room was as thick as SF summer fog. It makes me want to lick my entire body just thinking about it.
Her proximity made it nearly impossible not to brush up against the coat en route to and from the bar. I watched as folks went to load up on salsa. Everyone always takes too much and ends up trying to carry five overflowing plastic containers all at once back to their table. As each scooched by, the fine furs caressed their plebeian frocks. Is anyone clean enough to touch a coat like that? I held my breath at every pass, inspecting the coat for saucy streaks.
(I wonder if, instead of paper towels, rich people use rolls of disposable mink to clean up their messes? Much gentler on their manicured hands and reclaimed-teak furniture.)
It also occurred to me that it must no longer be a thing to wear fur out in public and have to worry about someone throwing fake blood on you. When did that change? I guess society has collectively moved on to other causes. I haven’t seen any Pam Anderson billboards for a spell. If that was still a thing, you definitely wouldn’t wear a fur coat to a taqueria. Seems a likely place to bump into an off-duty activist fueling up for a long day of blood-splattering and “Fur is murder” chanting.
I didn’t stick around to see if the coat made it out of there unscathed. Probably, it was fine. All my judgmental banter aside, in retrospect the lady and her fur coat didn’t really look that out of place. Maybe if we asked Miss Fancycoat, she would say that I was the one who looked out of place. And maybe she’s right. You can’t have wild mushrooms in your burrito and have it be 1999 all at the same time. It really was a delicious burrito. I hate how good gentrification tastes sometimes.
