New Low: Smug Dragons On Mini Dragon-Sized Sofas At Urth Caffe Sunday Brunch

I thought I'd taken in plenty of weird for one Sunday—god's day—between the woman in the tube top exposing her angel wing-tatted upper half at brunch, and later, the post-menopausal woman at CVS struggling to carry more value packs of Stayfree maxi pads to the register than her robust arms could manage. Then again, I wasn't at Urth Caffe on Melrose, which aside from its own daily showcase of yuppie weirdness I tend to avoid because when I pay $15 for a sandwich, I want it to taste like it was made that day. But my sister was, and saw a man with "Baby Love," his Chinese water dragon in repose on his personal fainting sofa, having their own Sunday brunch one table over. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to take photos and share her truly astounding encounter with Baby Love and his master.

Yesterday was seemingly a typical Sunday at Urth when my sister and her friends took a table outside next to a man discussing dragons with others at another table before noticing a small, velvet fainting sofa on his table next to his laptop. Dragons and mini furniture? Okay, this whole town is industry, perhaps he's working on some fantasy animation project? Or writing a script based in medieval times? Any number of suppositions like that could have made sense of the scenario. In fact, almost anything would have made more sense than what they realized was actually happening when they looked over the next minute to find the dragon man's sofa now had a green creature reclining on it in a position that Julius Caesar probably assumed while awaiting the concubines to feed him grapes. A man Sunday brunching with a tiny dragon on tiny dragon-sized furniture on Melrose we could never, under no extreme circumstances, have ever anticipated.

My sister soon learned from the man that not only was it a real, living breathing animal, a Chinese water dragon, but this smug little lizard's name was Baby Love. As the man told them this information in his very matter of fact manner as if a lizard named Baby Love sitting smugly like that on a mini dragon sofa in an overpriced dining establishment is totally normal, he raised Baby Love up and proceeded to kiss his face with deep affection.

I realize you may feel a bit overwhelmed, and believe me, we are too, and I know how this must sound. But there's just absolutely no way we could make any of this up.

[Photos by Sophie Green]

[NB: Our New Lows are generally reserved for sad things we see in the nightlife realm, but make we do make exceptions for extraordinary happenings like this that violate society's acceptable standards of everyday life.]

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