adventures at the green bean

I'm sitting here at the Green Bean, my favorite little coffee shop in Greensboro. I like to sit by the window, so I can people watch when I'm not people watching online (you know, Facebook status updates, Tweets, etc.).

I just watched two girls try over and over again to take a picture of themselves. You know, the MySpace type, where you take a picture of yourself? Anyway, they did it probably four times before they were satisfied.

I start to wonder, why the hell are they taking a picture in front of a street light in Greensboro, NC? Did this suddenly become the destination for tourism? Maybe they're just two girls, really excited about how they're going to school here in the fall, and that excitement carries over to having to take pictures of themselves everywhere they can imagine in the city of their future. Maybe they plan to return to that street light one night, after drinking heavily, to be like "Oh my Gaaaaaaaad remember that pole!?!"

What's concerning me more, though, is when the hell people stopped asking other people to take pictures of them? You know, "hi! Sorry, so sorry, but could you take a picture of us??" There's a few reasons that I've thought that this phenomenon has died:

1. Digital cameras. You can take the picture over and over and over again till your arm is only slightly in the picture, making it look like maybe you didn't take it of yourself. So, it's just unnecessary to bother someone for a second of their time to take a picture of you when you can spend 5 minutes of yours getting the perfect one that doesn't look like you tried to hard to make it perfect.
2. The internet. Human interaction, the real kind, is just too scary, too much to handle.
3. The economy. Everyone blames everything else on that, so I will too.
4. September 11. See above.
5. People got tired of asking strangers to take pictures of them, only to realize that strangers don't know how to take a decent picture. I think this it the most plausible reason. Besides, how is a stranger to know what your best angle is?

Now that that's been thoroughly investigated, I feel a lot better. And now there is a cop on a segway, taking out his taser (holy. shit.) and showing off to the people sitting in front of the Green Bean how a taser works. Seriously. I heard the zapping through the glass window. And that's my cue to get the hell out of here.