Grapes of Wrath

There's a popular tweet, made more popular by my inability to shut up about it: A grocer is asked, "Can I try a grape?" by a customer was browsing the produce section.

The grocer says: "I wouldn't care if you lit this place on fire with me in it."

This is everything - I can see the grocer pressing "pause" on his music, slipping his iPhone into his pocket, waiting to hear what fresh nonsense a customer is presenting to him on this particular day in hell.

The grocer's student loans have been piling up. He needs to pay rent. His mom called, she's in the hospital. The trifecta of American bullshit bills has piled up, and he is on call to pay them.

He makes $16.70 an hour. This is above average. He wanted a new Xbox. A new TV. This is now a wet dream.

While the customer asks him about the grapes, he is somewhere else. He is in Tahiti, or Puerto Rico, or at the bar down the street. He is singing karaoke at said bar, drinking his problems into oblivion. A beer in this city costs $8 before tip. That's what he makes in half and hour of work.

While he is thinking this, and saying: "I wouldn't care if you lit this place on fire with me in it," he is imagining the fire from within, the one that keeps him coming in for his paycheck.

No: he is actually thinking about flames, about annihilation, about burning.

For this is corporate America, and he is just a player in a bigger game of grapes.