San Francisco is My Home

30
Dec

The winter cobra

Author: kris, Category: Seen

Some of the downtown MUNI stations are filled with Starbucks posters. The posters all depict cartoony figures in happy, traditional winter scenes: skiing, making snow angels, catching snowflakes on tongues, and so on. Except one poster, which features a mongoose and a cobra standing in the snow, wearing scarves and hats and being friendly with one another. The poster says “Make new friends.”

I get it, of course: a mongoose and a cobra are traditionally enemies, but the Christmas season has caused them to forget their differences. But you know what else they traditionally are? They are traditionally known as animals that dwell in hot climates. India, for example. Why on earth didn’t Starbucks pick traditional snow-dwelling enemies? Like, I don’t know, a polar bear and a penguin? This poster bothers me every time I see it. Thank goodness I can share these little upsets with you.