I’m in a serendipitous situation, I suppose. I write this while sitting in a sparsely populated coffee shop. And in knowing that I’m writing on the idea of entitlement, I’m witnessing two events with, perhaps, a critical eye. To my left is a little girl who’s throwing a tantrum. I think you’d need the Richter scale to measure its magnitude. She wants a chocolate covered strawberry that she sees in the display, but her parents are telling her that she can’t have it. “WHY NOT?!” the little girl screams. “Because you’ve already had your breakfast, and it’s too early for a snack.”

I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but judging from the expression on her father’s embarrassed face, I think this little girl will win (she does). Over to my right, there is a girl who appears to be in her early twenties. She’s telling her mom why she needs a new cell phone. As an objective witness to this (apparently one-sided) conversation, I’d say that she doesn’t need a new phone. It sounds like she wants one, and not even badly. This conversation seems routine, and this girl is not trying hard to be persuasive. I get the feeling this happens a lot. And, ah yes, her mother looks out the window, exhales a cloud of apathy and says, “I’ll let your father know.”
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