JUST CAUSE

Sometimes there are too many shufts in the neighborhood. In this statement, you should recognize a term from Dutch ('schoft'), backformed into an English language cognate. Polite enough to be used in mixed company. It's something I realized when outside having a smoke and noticing the cars parked where they should not have been. Which is a common issue in San Francisco. Where there is no parking. And too many cars.

I myself haven't driven in years.

What disturbs me is that they drove to this particular neck of the woods because of the fabulous drinking opportunities. Yeah, okay, I understand that many twenty-somethings drive better drunk than sober, but still.

There are considerably more bars nearby than coffee shops, and sadly the coffee shops close in early evening.

Far be it from me to speak snidely of inebriative opportunities and enterprises. They are valuable. It keeps most shufts off the street. It would be even better if they could smoke inside their dissipatory environments, as that would lessen their number outdoors and improve the neighborhood at night considerably.

And surely everyone agrees that it is better to have sailors and adventurous young people congregating together safely indoors, in smoke-filled bars and seedy dives, rather than snogging in public view.

Especially now that it's colder outside. We don't want them to catch pneumonia.
In general, sailors being sick in full view is bad for morale.
Irrespective of the actual cause.

Drinking, snogging, or food poisoning.




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