I Paid $10 For a Matcha so I'm Leaving the Country

I just got charged $10 for a matcha and I think it’s time to leave the country. The collapse of America has arrived, and this is the most obvious sign yet. I could have invested that $10 into Bitcoin ten years ago and become a rich, insufferable egomaniac living in the Balkans by now. I could have made this all about me and my 15 houses, sipping my celebrity friend’s newest liquor while I flick bits of pickle over the cliff and watch the peasants below fight for the will to dill.

I could have done that, but instead I’m stuck in this coffee coffin of neo-liberal debauchery, debating whether it’s even worth it to wake up tomorrow. It’s one thing to charge $10 for a matcha, but another to be talked down to by the walls. Look, I’m sorry the world isn’t all glitter and tits, okay? I wish it was. Really, I do. If I could pick two things for the world to be, glitter and tits would be high on the list. I dream of such a place, but I don’t act like it has the right to be actualized.

You should be grateful that life sucks. If it didn’t suck it wouldn’t be great. We have to know what the true pain of purchasing a $10 matcha is like to find the flip side of that, which would be literally fucking anything at this point. This is as low as it gets. They won’t teach it in history books. They’ll tell you about the wars, you’ll read about the famines, but rest assured you’ll never know about the $10 lavender matcha with a tip screen. Yeah, I see your side eye lurking back on the screen to see if the total has increased.

I’m sorry your employer decided it was their prerogative to not pay you. You want me to walk out of here having shelled out $13 for a lavender matcha just because you put it on the cock-goblin chalk board outside the entrance of the hapless hellhole you have to stay in for the day? Oh, it’s a special! Yeah, you’re special. This whole country is special. I feel like I’m getting grifted the second I stumble out of my first-floor apartment because if I lived on the second they’d charge me for the damn stairs.

This country is cooked because everything is a ruse. The American dream has turned into the American steam because it’s been absolutely vaporized by the collective cacophony we’ve allowed ourselves to be caught in. We act like it’s always somebody else’s fault, as if we’re not the ones who let this whole thing happen. And I’m no better because I still paid for the malpractice matcha they trapped me in. I should have burned the café down is what I should have done.

At least the guy who torched the toilet paper warehouse had some balls. It’s ironic that toilet paper is always at the crux of a country going to shit. It’s no wonder we all ran to Costco to buy ass cotton when the collapse of our autonomy was accelerated. I’d like to buy a bowel, please. Might as well, the wheel of fortune is only spinning in one direction and it’s not towards your lower-middle-class ass. I’d be afraid of shitting myself too if I knew the government was feeding me laxatives full of lies.

And I’m not shielded from the fear because I don’t know this. Trust me, I know. I’ve just had too many colonoscopies to give a shit. If we get to a place as a nation where I can’t wipe my own ass, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. If things get that bad, you’ll be thankful just to have something come out of your backside, and I’ll be long gone.

Half the places you go here look like a third-world country and they still charge ten dollars for a matcha. America is done. We had a good run. It’s over. The world power is crumbling beneath our feet, and we’re too close to see the fall. I should have just bought an iced tea.

- Jason Scott Brendel

Jason Scott Brendel is an author, comedian, and deranged lunatic living in Austin, Texas. You can support his creative career by purchasing his laugh-out-loud collection of poetry on Amazon (https://shorturl.at/9MaXR) or by following him on Instagram @JasonBrendel