Liberty Starbucks Way

The other day I was at Starbucks. I hate the corporate culture but I love coffee. So, I haven’t been able to give up Starbucks. Bastards have pictures of indigenous people hung on their four walls picking up coffee beans, and have championed themselves as friends of these people somewhere in South America or Africa. They don’t give a rat’s ass about them; it’s all about profit, and all these altruistic soft-heart-bleary-eyes-white-liberals would order some intricate beverage thinking that farmer’s life in the picture would get better by drinking at Starbucks. Well that’s Ameircan liberalism when it comes to some brown/black people somewhere in the world. I saw an ad: a tourist drinking Starbucks at Tiananmen Square. Starbucks is ubiquitous. Let the tourists have indigenous experience while they travel, let them have some local Chinese tea at some local Chinese chaiwalla stall; you don’t need to follow them all around the world. But, I might be wrong here, Starbucks at Tiananmen Square might have been for the local consumption. They might have had the urge to stake awake and stay ahead of the game after the centuries of slumber; people of ‘Sleeping Dragon And Slouching Tiger.’ As Justin Timberlake of consumerism pop culture Thomas Friedman would say, world is flat. Idiot wouldn’t realize even if he falls off the edge. Fuck him.

 

Ok, coming back to some intricate beverage at Starbucks. A good synonym for America would be ‘choices.’ It’s all about choices while buying some commodity or service. There are at least ten choices for everything. Sadly, they relate these overwhelming choices with liberty and democracy. You will have to answer 20 questions, before you get your god damn sandwich, since you can make 20 different sandwiches with same ingredients. Now, how is it any different, they are selling the same shit with different names? That doesn’t stop at sandwich, the madness stretch as far as conjugal service. And they decry, that divorce is a national crisis. Given so many choices, every man would want to try everything, hence more divorces (pun indented, I know of few men who are as loyal as lap dogs). They should learn from Nepalis that you stick to your woman, the one your parents found for you until you die, even if her vagina is under her armpit, blame it on karma, and go about living. And, we South Asian men wonder/argue why our marriages work better. Apparently they never bother to ask the same question to their wives, since their opinions don’t count.

 

With no more meandering, let’s talk about varieties of beverages at Starbucks. Why can’t white people order simple drink? Like get me a regular coffee, instead of, I would get ‘Machiano with expresso shot with sprinkle of pumpkin seed with twitch of vanilla powder with 2% low fat cow milk from Mid West.’ It’s not that I never wanted to drink those drinks, but the problem is I don’t know how to order or what to order, it sounds more difficult than the periodic table in Chemistry book. The best I have done is, ‘I will have the same,’ after a women put an order which sounded like some magical incantation. The drink turn out to be like some beat up cheese cake in the cup with the straw. I don’t understand how that even remotely resembles coffee? Well, I guess that’s democracy, order coffee and end up getting some cheese cake taste like drink, element of surprise at your own expense, since they don’t come cheap, I mean in dollar value.

 

And this same mad urges for choices extrapolates in their Foreign Policies too. No wonder Americans were so anxious to dispense their ‘Democracy’ to Iraqis. They thought lack of choices in Iraq equates to no democracy, since it’s been Saddam all way long. Sadly, it has not been as sweet as some cheese cake beverage at Starbucks. Nonetheless, more choices on how to get killed and by whom, pretty democratic way of dieing I would say, if not living.

 

Freedom of choices have never been fair for me, I always end up getting the worst deal, when given many choices to pick from. Let’s say, I have the special talent at picking up wrong things, that’s my karma. But many of my friends have flourished and prosper under this system, especially when they do shopping. They always end up buying the same thing almost 20 to 30% cheaper than I do. Out of embarrassment, I tell them I bought the same shit at the same price as they did, sometime I even lie that I got it cheaper than them. 

 

For most of us, American way of life has been buying things off EBay, enjoying our rights to choose. And I’ve yet to order my mail-bride.