It Is July And The Shops Say Back To School

The list is two pages. It specifies a brand. It specifies a colour. Item eleven is hand sanitizer, item twelve is paper towels, and by item nineteen it is no longer clear whether this is a school or a small under-resourced office being crowdfunded by parents in July.

The policy is real. It is in the handbook. It is also directly adjacent to a meeting that has never once ended before ten past five, run by a man who describes himself in his bio as a champion of work-life balance.

Base price six. Oat milk, one dollar. Cold foam, one twenty-five. And then, at the bottom of a receipt longer than the drink was tall, a charge for extra ice, which is to say a charge for slightly less coffee.