The Hamptons II

Ever since college, I’ve enjoyed going out for early morning coffee at McDonald’s or an equivalent fast food restaurant to get a jump on the day. I can’t do that in the Hamptons because chain restaurants seem to have been banished from town.

So I’ve been having my morning coffee at a fashionable place called Simon’s. I’ve got to pay $2 for a coffee refill and they don’t open until 6am. There are several flags adorning the façade of Simon’s, amongst which include the multicolor diversity flag and the flag of the United States. The United States flag is physically lower.

Fair enough. It is what it is, and Simon has a business to run. He does make excellent food.

There is an interesting dynamic I can see at work in this community though. The majority of physical work here is done by Hispanics; most of whom I think are illegal based on my observations of groups of young Hispanic men going to church together.

There is an unstated understanding in the Hamptons. Democrats driving the German cars with the multi-million dollar houses constitute one segment of society, and the largely Mayan-looking hedge-clippers another. But there is no effective social firewall.

Yesterday at Simon’s, a Hispanic family came in for doughnuts. The two young sons were both sporting plastic assault rifles and ran around the place pretending to shoot at people, with the approval of the father. Simon wasn’t pleased, but nobody said anything. On weekend nights, packs of brown people congregate downtown near, and sometimes in, designer clothing shops.

God help us if the Hampton daughters begin to believe what they are taught in school and date Mexicans. It would be like Dirty Dancing times a thousand.