Cafeteria Confession
By Jimmy Chen
Let me begin by saying that my employers have not particularly seduced me with my salary, whose compensatory effects are less than enthralling. Put simply, I get paid just enough to pay whatever the hell bills wind up in my mailbox, and if I’m lucky, at the end of the month, I can get the 16 year Scotch instead of the 12 year. Yes, I am into 16-year-olds; I hear that’s legal in France.
Such a disclaimer serves to justify my Neo-ethical behavior at my employer’s cafeteria, of which I, along with my likewise defeated co-workers, are unwitting patrons. The cafeteria’s name actually ends with the letters “fat,” which I’ve always found both prophetic and cruel. Located on the 2nd floor of a rather large vaguely lit building, it conventionally charges by (a) weight in ounces or (b) flat rates.
3-Bean Chili is considered “soup,” a non-specialty item charged under the auspices of (b) flat rate. And so, a 16 oz. container of 3-Bean Chili (or any soup) will cost you $2.70. If this seems reasonable, then welcome to the age of reason. While soup is digestively more evolved, it is rather boring. The more sophisticated and culturally aggressive may lean towards Chicken Tikka Masala, considered an “ethnic” specialty item, and charged by the (a) ounce, at a rate of $0.57 per oz.
Now take a wild guess what happens if one — a subscriber to post-Marxist “ethical neo-anarchy” and good old fashioned scamming — were to aesthetically present 90-95% of Chicken Tikka Masala at the register covered with a perfect layer of 3-Bean chili so that, from “stupid cashier’s eye view,” it simply appears to be an innocent container of the latter. The answer to this wild guess is simple: one procures Chicken Tikka Masala worth $9.12 [16 oz. x 0.57] but only pays the $2.70 soup flat rate, thus “ripping off” his fucking employer by $6.42. Yes, this is what happens when you fuck with this contributor. This is what happens when you humiliate me for over 5 years with petty bureaucratic obsolescence. This is what happens at lunch bitch.
Let us not discuss what happens to a man approximately 4 hours after he ingests 16 oz. of this so called “Chicken Tikka Masala,” only to say that it resembles dysentery. In the end, perhaps, I did/do not come out “on top,” but this cafeteria scam holds so much symbolic importance. Punk is wasted in suburbia. In the real world — the world of mortgage, divorce, judgmental therapists, high-cholesterol, high-blood pressure, chronic depression (I could go on) — punk is all a man like me has, and if that means Anarchy in the UK Café, then fucking awesome ima cut my face with broken glass and jump into the crowd.
I love Indian food, it’s like a saturated puddle of spicy Brahman. Hindus are obsessed with the river — praying, washing, bathing, drinking, unfortunately in the same river. Still Siddhartha came out cleansed, and he didn’t even use soap. Give an elephant lady four hands, call her Vishnu, and you’re 2x more likely to receive a spiritual hand job. Sorry to end with an Indian joke, but they are a sick bunch. I mean, look what happened to my poor toilet.