“In a Privileged World”
After stretching out his face and making several random noises, Eric grew serious and turned on his camera. “Good afternoon to all my viewers. Although, I do have some bad news, as you can see from the title of this video. I think we need to boycott Joe’s Cup. I know, it’s the third largest coffee chain in the country, and I’m sure a lot of you are like me and stop in almost every day, but what they did today left me … infuriated.
“So the story is, I stopped in to get my basic Colombian Roast Coffee, and this is what it came in.” Here Eric lifted a standard coffee cup into frame with the blue, Joe’s Cup logo on it. Pointing at it, he asked, “Do you see the problem? It’s the first day of Pride Month, so where’s their rainbow-colored coffee cups? I mean, maybe there were shipping problems or something, I could understand that. Of course, Pride Month is the same time every year, so you’d think they’d know it was coming.”
Setting the cup down, Eric continued, “I can almost forgive this lack of Pride, but then, then, you won’t believe this, instead of wishing me a Happy Pride, the barista just said, ‘Have a nice day.’ ‘Have a nice day?’ I was so shocked, I just walked out in a daze. Like, I stumbled down the sidewalk for five minutes. At first, I was just so confused, but then my blood began to boil. I then did the most unthinkable thing: I poured out the coffee. I fought the urge to crumple this cup,” here he briefly lifted it back into frame, “because I knew I’d need it as a prop for this video.
“That’s why I think we need to boycott Joe’s Cup. I mean, what’s this country coming to when they think it’s okay to pull this shit? As soon as I calm down, I’ll start the planning. So in the next day or two there should be a video for that.”
Eric reached to turn off the camera, but stopped. “Oh, since they apparently don’t want to say it, ‘Happy Pride.’”
Turning the camera off, he took several deep breaths. He then sipped from a second, Joe’s Cup coffee cup. Setting it down, he stretched out his face and made more random noises. After a calming breath, he turned the camera back on.
“Good afternoon to all my viewers. Although, I do have some bad news, as you can see from the title of this video….”
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If you liked this story, you might want to check out The All-You-Can-Read Buffet, my collection of forty short stories.