Milk It For All Its Work
COFFEE SHOP | TORONTO, ON, CANADA | BIZARRE, FOOD & DRINK, TOP
(A regular walks into the shop, makes his usual order, and pays for it. But instead of waiting at the bar, he pulls out an empty litre plastic bottle. He then pulls out a little funnel and fills the bottle to the brim with our coffee shop’s milk and stands at the bar looking smug until his drink arrives.)

Coworker: “That’s a lot of milk you’ve got there.”

Customer: “I know… I have to make ends meet somehow, with the prices that you charge. That’s like five bucks worth of milk in there.”

Coworker: “Well, sir, the other customers might want some, too.”

Customer: “I’m setting an example. How much do these cost to make? Milk, coffee, energy, wages. Less than I just paid for it. So, according to Marx’s theory of materialist dialectics, you’re extracting surplus value from me, the consumer. I’m just getting back some of what you owe me, and all the other customers should too.”

(At this point, everyone is looking at us, and the manager comes over to intervene.)

Manager: “Sir, our margins are pretty tight and that…” *points at the milk* “…is WAY more than the surplus value. Anyway, I haven’t done the calculation but I’d say most of the surplus value you contribute goes to homeless people and the ones who come in here and make themselves cinnamon milk to drink. You pay according to your ability, and they get according to their need. Yeah?”

Customer: *goes quiet and walks out, leaving his milk on the bar*

Manager: “Don’t try and school me on Marxist theory, a**hole.”


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