I feel guilty for being too WASPy. You know? I mean I got into enough debt college to both perminantly cripple my finances and learn that people like me have pretty consistantly screwed everyone and that the good guys today don’t look or talk or think like me. My only hope was that I would turn out gay. Sadly that didn’t happen. Happily married with kids. And my wife stays home. So…go feminism, right?
I’m not saying my life isn’t great. It is. But doesn’t that makes it all worse? I mean while I walk around sipping my cheap coffee in the morning I can’t feel good about being frugal because I’m not buying free trade coffee. It’s people like me who are perpetrating all the atrocities towards people that grow coffee. Honestly I don’t even know what the problem with coffee is. I feel bad about that too. Not knowing. I get so sick about it I decide to throw out the coffee (And its not very good. I mean why should I suffer mentally and physically.) . But then I realize there was probably a homeless shelter that could have used that.
So, I drive over to the store to buy some more coffee and a pound for the homeless too. Outside the store an old Guy is trying to raise money for some disease I don’t know anything about. And the thing that sucks is I don’t carry cash. Part of me wants to stop and talk to the guy. I could at least encourage him and tell him to keep his chin up or whatever. Maybe I could let him tell me about this terrible disease. He could raise my “awareness.” That all seems pretty involved. Plus I get pretty iritated with anyone who collects money in public. Really? We have to have this weird moment where you judge me and I feel like shit because I don’t have any change? It just seems so dramatic for thirty-five cents.
Inside the store I decide to buy myself a cup of coffee from the starucks stand. I make sure to ask if the coffee is Free Trade. A cute girl smiles at me. Then I feel worse because I don’t really care about that plus I’m married and I wasn’t trying to attract attention but I kind of liked it.
I make it two coffees; I figure the least I can do is give the guy outside one for being so charitable with his time. Two coffees plus two pounds of beans (one for me and one for the homeless shelter). All that plus the coffee I threw away: $32.90.
Turns out the guy outside is allergic to caffiene. He says he’d love a decaf. So I pitch the caffinated one and get Old Boy a decaf. As he takes it he tells me “you know, for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day we could really do some good for people.”
