A spitball in the straw of a cosmic jock

At the shop where I work two days a week, a vanilla latte costs 7 dollars. This time last year it was 6. Next year it will be 10. The year after you’ll have to sign a lease, take out a loan.  

In ten years you won’t even get close to coffee unless you own a plantation. Own the village where you whip illiterate farmers to torture the earth into spilling its seeds. 

Your wages don’t match rising costs. Rent and basic goods put you in a chokehold. Frivolous spending makes you feel better, eases the tension of living in a trash compactor. You spend what little you have left over on luxuries. Tropical flavors in air-conditioned rooms. Electronic devices that simulate a caravan of exotic storytellers, a troupe to amuse the imperial court.  

A little more time for beggars with royal appetites. But soon enough you’ll have to cut back, get by with a little less fun. Eat lamb shanks without sauces that would enliven a melancholic sultan.  

In the shop where I work, I’d like to propose a switch to an alternative economic model. If you want a latte, instead of giving me 7 dollars, how about you fight me in a bare-knuckle boxing match. Win or lose, the coffee is yours. Or you could do a trick, put on a magic show.  

Let’s make it interesting, get creative. Everyone complains about money, how much it all costs. Everyone has going through the motion sickness, so let’s try something else. How about you eat an old milk rag for a cappuccino. Recite Tennyson’s In Memoriam from memory and I’ll give you a strawberry blondie bar.  

Clean the bathrooms for a discount. Do my laundry for a giftcard. If no one has enough money we’ll have to widen our trades. It could get dark. This drink will cost you a pound of flesh, a quart of blood. A big toe for a burrito. Pull out a fingernail in front of me and you can have a cold brew. People complain about tips, the outrage of spending even more on top of an already outrageous expense. What about a different tip. A sack of foreskins, a dickhead necklace. Here’s an indecent proposal: one night with your wife for a coffee cake.  

You’re sure you want a mocha with internet access and 68 degree temperature and curated playlists and a safe environment where the hobo outside threatening to shit on the sidewalk seems a world away, his lunatic rambling mute behind glass. 7 or 8 dollars and then a tip, it’s pricey. Forget the money and tie that guy’s shoelaces together, do it while he’s waiting at the counter so he stumbles with a cup of 200-degree coffee and a hot jelly donut. 

Your money’s no good here anymore, now you pay in evil deeds. Slander and manipulation, pitting friends against each other with intricate lies. A bottomless cup for a broken marriage. Be the dark force behind the fall of high-class houses, a whisperer from the velvet drapes, egging on princes to commit rash acts of revenge. Then you can have a figgy dessert.  

It’s not going to get easier. The ease you currently enjoy: try to enjoy it. But that’s just it, you can’t. The torment never ends. This incredible thing costs more than it used to, more than it should. I should have this for less, it shouldn’t have been this hard for me, he got it with half the effort.  

My soul has never been held to account. I have no idea what I’m worth; the core of who I am is still in its plastic packaging. But I know how much everything else should cost. I should be paid more but everything else should be less expensive. I’m the only one who needs to make more money to live. I’m pretty sure a computer generates all these other people. 

Most of us are a series of tests that never come. After five minutes of reflecting with a finger in my butt I’m sure I know what Jeff Bezos should do. Not only with his money, just in general. I’m 37 years old and I’m still telling myself one day I’ll sit down and hash things out with death.  

Some people can’t believe the violence and vulgarity of the age. I can’t believe it’s not worse. A miracle that most people aren’t murdering each other all the time.  

The idea that things could be worse is the most ineffectual consolation; we can’t hold onto it, our depraved hearts won’t allow it. Anything that is, stands in the light of its impossible improvement. For us, privation doesn’t humble. Setbacks turn us into Karl Marx’s bastard sons. Sitting on hard grievances until our asses break out in boils.  

(I can’t be the only one who thought Job’s complaining was a little tedious. He’s arguing with the creator of the universe. Like a gnat in my eyelashes.) 

Encouraged to fear anything now but God. Little pestilent others all over the place. Other races, ethnicities, economic classes, political parties, annoying artistic scenes. The great big other who can blow you out with a snort from his left nostril; what has he undone for me lately?

I don’t believe in God. There’s no need. His existence is an obvious fact, one that has become easy to forget. It’s obvious we’re in the hands of a transcendent power, our dies cast by an eternally medieval dungeon master. Whether I believe or not, I’m getting wadded up into a spitball by a cosmic jock. I wish I could relax in the meantime.