How much is it without the cup?

This morning at a Berkeley coffee shop:

"How much is a bagel?"
"A dollar. With cream cheese, its a dollar seventy-five."
"What?? How about with butter?"
"A dollar-fifty."
"Tell you what, I'll give you a dollar and I'll take that bagel off your hands with a little bit of butter."
"Hahahaha. San Francisco is expensive man."
"Man, in New York I can get a buttered bagel and a coffee for a dollar.."
"No way. I thought New York was the most expensive place."
"Yeah, but real people live there too. I can go up to a breakfast cart and get that bagel and coffee for a dollar, or go to a dive diner and donut shop and get an egg sandwich breakfast WITH coffee for a buck seventy-five."
"But I thought New York was as expensive as San Francisco.."

And thats when I realized...

People are perversely PROUD of it being expensive here.

I mean, I'd had a sneaking suspicion that was the case, but it seems a silly thing to be proud of.

But now it makes sense.
With the - in my mind, dubious - distinction of being one of the most expensive places to live in the world - as if that fact makes San Francisco on par with the major cities of the world.

No, as one of THE major cities in the world.

Otherwise it'd merely be a foggy and chilly San Diego with nice restaurants, lagging far behind LA and New York in prestige and status.

*pshaah*

Unless it comes with GOOD Lox and cream cheese, there aint no fuckin way Im paying over a dollar for a bagel.

Not even in fuckin New York.