Quarter For My Thoughts

                                                 
“The rent too damn high” my data plan cost more than my voice plan and the dollar store wants to charge me for using the cash back option at the register.

             Lord have mercy why has thou forsaken me?

     Just when I thought this corporate greed couldn’t get any worse I was brought back from the brink by an old familiar face. If your not familiar with this beverage it’s cause you ain't from where I'm from. If you haven’t climbed a chain link fence or played in a school yard covered in more crack vials than concrete than I’m sorry this may not be for you.

      But for those who understand the struggle between income and thirst, I present to you the quarter water. You don’t need Google to tell you what’s inside this shit…ingredients are as follows sugar, water, PURPLE. This high fructose corn syrup tap water creation was peddled in the hood through the vast network of illegal corner stores known as bodegas. For a mere 25 cents you could temporarily quench your thirst (15 minutes) while at the same time increasing your chances for acne, diabetes and a lower sperm count.

     

     What’s more amazing is not that this purple poison continues to flourish in the inner city and a lower income area near you, but that the price has remained unchanged for over 20+ years.  If you don’t think that’s amazing then dammit lets examine the facts. In 1992, a pair of Air Jordans could be purchased for $125, a gallon of gasoline for $1.02 and a McDonald's Big Mac would only set you back $2.19. Today LeBron James wants your non-athletic, skinny jean wearing, below grade level reading at-risk son of a Rikers Island inmate to fork over $300 so they can dominate the basketball courts of XBOX.

     

     Now ask yourself this, how is it papi can maintain to keep his prices level after 20 years but the CEO of Nike, the Saudi Royal Family and Ronald McDonald himself can't. Is papi some kind of business mastermind? Did he graduate valedictorian from the Puerto Rican University of Phoenix? I think not, I think these corporations are pimping us all…word to Stevie J