Five dollars...
I dropped some very strong "F" bombs on the hispanic woman working the counter on the Jersey pike today. It wasn't her fault directly but in the moment 2.35 seemed outrageous for a lousy plastic bottle of snapple which was promptly left on the counter as she yelled back at me something about how i had to pay for it because she rang it up. As i angrily stormed out to my truck i knew this was not her fault , at the same time i blame her and people on the road people like you and me who allow this kind of ridiculousnes to go on in a country where so many go without. The two dollars and thirty five cents that people are willing to spend on something as unneccessary as "Snapple" could actually buy a hungry kid a loaf of bread. Shit, a hungry kid with an oven could actually buy some flour and yeast and make a few loafs with that kinda money. But thats not even why i was so angry, i thought about this women who had just gotten so angry at my anger, i thought about her and i wanted to slap her and tell her to stop and think. I know everyone needs a job and a way to make their money but she gets jerked off everyday even worse than her customers at best guess she makes minimum wage, maybe she's been there a few years and its like 25 cents better than that, a bottle of snapple at cost is something like what 40,60 cents? Making allowances off that price for taxes whoever owns that tiny little rathole service station store is making more than enough money off the bottled drinks alone to pay the employees livable wages and still make a profit. That poor hispanic lady probably works three jobs just to make shit work meanwhile her shithead boss charges double to triple the cost on everything he sells and he pays her maybe six bucks an hour. Why? So people like me can come in and give her crap about the literal highway robbery and then pay the price anyways? Today i said no, after two years now of ignoring this highjacking of my hard earned cash to make some piece of shit nobody richer i said no, but that was just today and i'm just one person. What if we all said no what if as a people we said Fuck you to two dollar snapple and 5 dollar mocha lattes full of diabetes and death? What then?
Later i went to Dunkin donuts on barnum ave before catching my 25 dollar cab back to the truckstop. At Dn' D i purchased a large french vanilla light and sweet coffe for 2 dollars and eleven cents. This to me was worth it. It was not merely about the need for caffeine this was a piece of the past that i find comfort in. There are so many things that have changed since we were all sixteen but the coffee at Dunkin donuts on barnum ave, though the building is cleaner and no longer leaves the door open past eleven at night the coffee still tastes like youth. For five dollars once upon a time i could get a medium french vanilla coffee for a dollar thirty five and a pack of marlboro reds at the exxon and with the remainder of my weekend allowance of ten dollars i could put five down one a bag of whatever was green and available. Coffee, Cigerrettes, Pot and friends pricelessly set up in five dollar increments and when the cash was gone ya had friends to search the cushions for change and the streets for bottles and cans. Goddamn shit was simple then! How the fuck did i get from there to worrying if the woman behind the counter ever wondered how come she only made six bucks an hour in a place where everything was so extremely overpriced...