Tonight, I was looking for shrimp toast, and I found three options, two of which did not even sell it. The third one, however, offered information about its Michelin reviews and how reservations were available again. After coming into work on my day off, I was just astonished about how unimpressive that was to me, despite that seeming really intriguing in a past life. Instead, I just ended up getting food from somewhere else, disgusted with the whole process. It never occurs to the “elites” that it is inappropriate to demand that everyone create delights for them to experience that we ourselves rarely, if ever, get to enjoy.
Creating opportunities for envy is only helpful if it inspires others, but otherwise, it creates resentment. Fast food workers like myself have unreliable income, many of us work multiple jobs, and we cannot predict our schedules that far in advance. Telling someone who works multiple jobs, especially when one or more is on our feet, that we have to wait months for the chance to try something sounds obnoxious. Moreover, this makes Michelin seem particularly worthless since it only matters to people with money, and the majority of the population is broke. Who needs awards like that in the future?
Additionally, not giving people income while forcing them to be surrounded with places to spend discretionary income is cruel, especially since the “elites” have gotten insatiably greedy. One of the things Lalo told me that I always remember is how he never felt poorer than in the middle of Times Square. It is impossible to save when everyone is forced to live paycheck to paycheck, so the idea of “saving up” for a chance to live a life is insulting. We lived in Santa Teresita, a neighborhood in Guadalajara, for a month, and it was stressful being surrounded by things we could not enjoy for the most part. For those who mock families with children, that is what the children feel like when they go to the grocery store and their parents say, “No” to everything based on a budget.
While the “elites” are cackling over their cruelty, I am watching how people are no longer seeing their meanness as funny, just cruel. Fortunately, most people are using their creativity to express how vulnerable and betrayed we feel, and that creativity is creating wonderful new works and voices. Maybe it is past time the “elites” quit teasing the working class, and actually demonstrate their “sophistication” by allowing us to see for ourselves why their “exclusive” products are so wonderful. For now, most of us could care less.
Chasing A Dying Empire 