An amazing store. Incredible amounts of coffee. Tasty looking dead animals everywhere in chew-friendly bits. Pastries that look like somebody said, "What is this?" "I don't know, but it's chocolate." "Well, hell, just throw some cream cheese icing on top of it." "Brilliant!" There were marzipan little pigs waiting for someone to bite their cute little heads off. And chocolate and cream cups of cappuccino that were little pieces of holy-shit-that's-so-cool-but-I-gotta-eat-it art.

There's only one problem. They sell lots of food and drink that you can take away or consume there…but no public bathrooms. And not even that. Somebody said sure, there's a bathroom, and took Cosette back to where it was, only to startle the store manager who said, no, sorry, no bathroom for you.

At first I thought that this was extremely assholish of him. The proper way to handle that situation is to explain that no, there aren't bathrooms for the public, but because our employee was confused and said yes, be our guest this one time. And oh by the way, employee, what the hell were you thinking?

Then it struck me: this was a young guy, right? It's obvious why he didn't want Cosette going and using their restrooms.

He was afraid of Death.

Think about it. Your predecessor warns you: don't let anyone come back here and accost you. They could be Death. Death is sneaky. Sometimes it looks like a young woman with a full bladder, sometimes it looks like a young Robert Redford. Keep people away from the back of the store if you know what's good for you.

That was the lesson the older manager told his protege, right up until the day that some guy wandered into the back of the store feigning a delivery of some Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, only to rob the elderly man of his life.

So of course you can't pee in their bathrooms. Death could be any one of us. I feel sorry for the guy when I think about it that way. I really do.