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The NYT Is Right: Brunch IS for Jerks

The New York Times today published a jeremiad against brunch. It's a fine piece, though David Shaftel is writing it for the wrong reasons:

But now that I have a young daughter, brunch is completely impractical. By noon I’ve been up for hours and am ready for an actual lunch — although that meal is an increasingly endangered species on the weekend.

This is the one of those things where an editor should have thanked his writer for the idea and told him that his sour grapes will corrupt the entire argument. "Oh, you don't like brunch now that you have too many responsibilities? WELL BOO HOO OLD MAN." You need a younger curmudgeon to write that piece. Younger than me, even—32-year-old married people nursing hangovers at brunch are roughly as pathetic as the 22-year-old vomiters guzzling carafes of sparkling wine watered down with pulpy, expired orange juice.

But, since I have nothing better to write about—We cured Ebola, right?—allow me to offer my two cents: Brunch is terrible. And people who engage in the brunching tradition are similarly terrible. The food is always gross and splitting the bill is always a nightmare (though I gather that the youngs have conquered this cash-centric problem) and the drinks are poorly made when you get them at all.

About the drinks: We get it! You're hip! You like bottomless mimosas! You go girl or guy! Conspicuous consumption is awesome. Reveling in your alcoholism is really neat and not at all adolescent or puerile. You don't at all look idiotic as you stumble out of a bar and into the blinding daylight, hammered out of your mind and telling people about how awesome your daddy is.

Anyway, brunch is for jerks. Just look at all the jerks on Twitter whining about Shaftel's piece.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to catch a flight to Las Vegas,* where everyone acts like an adult all the time and no one does anything stupid and day-drinking is frowned upon. Ta!

*This is not a rhetorical flourish; I am actually going to Las Vegas. Pray for Mojo.