... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives
as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as
determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people
buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s
couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three
weeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available,
they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent
restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd of
excellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their beepers going
off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have
a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli.
-- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
