I'm curious about one thing---did they repeal all the anti-loitering laws some time back?
It used to be that if one would walk into a restaurant and order food and/or drink there was usually a time limit as to how long they'd be allowed to stay.
In fact during the period I was "bumming around the country" (hitchhiking from place-to-place) I would often order a coffee at a McDonald's or Denny's (or some place like that) and I would sometimes hang around for a couple hours or so
...and often I'd be asked if I "was waiting for someone". If I said "No, I'm not. Why?" I'd then be asked to leave. On numerous occasions the management of a few of these restaurants would even call the police on me---who would then ask me "What's the deal? What's your problem?"
But in the past decade-or-so, with the introduction of WI-FI, I've been noticing it's become quite-the-trend for customers to purchase a drink, take a seat, pull out their laptop computers, and then sit for hours at a time on the internet (or, in some cases, even working off-line).
Sometimes it's hard to even find a place to sit---especially in college campus areas during "exam time".
Maybe I'm making a mistake trying to measure standards of the past against those of present-day, but it does seem a bit absurd to me for well-dressed middle-class and student types---many who drive nice cars, no less---to have the appearance of "feigning homelessness".
Why ARE these people hanging out at Starbucks or Panera so often and for so long?
Are their apartments or duplexes THAT much of a dump that they can actually be more comfortable in public than they are at home?
It used to be that if one would walk into a restaurant and order food and/or drink there was usually a time limit as to how long they'd be allowed to stay.
In fact during the period I was "bumming around the country" (hitchhiking from place-to-place) I would often order a coffee at a McDonald's or Denny's (or some place like that) and I would sometimes hang around for a couple hours or so
...and often I'd be asked if I "was waiting for someone". If I said "No, I'm not. Why?" I'd then be asked to leave. On numerous occasions the management of a few of these restaurants would even call the police on me---who would then ask me "What's the deal? What's your problem?"
But in the past decade-or-so, with the introduction of WI-FI, I've been noticing it's become quite-the-trend for customers to purchase a drink, take a seat, pull out their laptop computers, and then sit for hours at a time on the internet (or, in some cases, even working off-line).
Sometimes it's hard to even find a place to sit---especially in college campus areas during "exam time".
Maybe I'm making a mistake trying to measure standards of the past against those of present-day, but it does seem a bit absurd to me for well-dressed middle-class and student types---many who drive nice cars, no less---to have the appearance of "feigning homelessness".
Why ARE these people hanging out at Starbucks or Panera so often and for so long?
Are their apartments or duplexes THAT much of a dump that they can actually be more comfortable in public than they are at home?
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