Talk at the coffee club concerned the car Ms. Anne Thrope bought two weeks ago. A three-year-old car that she described as gently used. “I like it, but it isn’t at all like my old Fiat Spider. Sure that Fiat was not dependable and I had to pop the radiator cap every two weeks to keep it from overheating, but I drove it for twenty years. When it ran, it was a fun car. A little temperamental, but that was part of the Fiat adventure. Now I’m driving a big SUV with an automatic transmission and plenty of bells and whistles and sophisticated gizmos that weren’t invented when that Fiat was built.”
“I’d like an Armenian coffee,” Sako Margarian said, “No need to grieve. That car was in my shop more than it was on the street and I had to buy some special tools to keep it running.”
“Cars,” said Banjo Voynovsky. “They have no style. I was going to buy a new Ford until I saw the taillights. They were ugly and small. Gave me a sour feeling for the whole car.”
“What?! That’s a superficial judgment.”
“No worse than all the other judgments people make today, Sako.”
“How can you say that? Taillights on a car are of no consequence beyond whether they work.”
“So people judge political candidates by their hair cuts or their sex or what they wrote in a book. Or maybe didn’t write in a book. And people judge other people all the time because of their skin tone. We judge because of superficial things all the time. So don’t tell me I can’t dislike a car because of its taillights. Maybe I might not come back here because I’m insulted by another customer or Ms. Anne doesn’t carry croissants like that big coffee chain.”
“Hey, don’t say that. They don’t have backgammon tables or maamoul cookies like Ms. Anne.”
“My point. We look for the superficial and make our judgments instead of seeing with the eye of the heart. One maamoul to go, please.”