The Coffee Shop Business

It was not my dream to own a fucking coffee shop. It was not my dream to see my fucking town—my beautifully simple town—turn into a fucking tourist trap.

I have lived in Goa for all 42 years of my life, and I have watched the trash, both literally and figuratively, from the rest of the world come in and pollute my home. Goa is not India, Goa is Goa. We didn’t want the Portuguese to leave, we liked what we had going; we had a perfect blend of Mediterranean simplicity and South Asian wisdom.  Now it’s a bunch of fucking Indians and Russians and whoever else on holiday dirtying our beaches with plastic bags and semen.  My kids can’t even ride their bikes on the street, like I did, without running the risk of some coked up, tripping, novice motorbiking piece of shit running them over .

My family sold our cashew farms, in part because of me. I didn't want to be a farmer and my dad knew it; I wanted to be a business man. I wanted to jet around the world, adorn my body with precious metals, and fuck lots of white women, all of which require a lot of money—more than cashews can provide. Now, instead of lamping in the Hamptons and falling in love in Paris and Moscow, I am selling coffees to Indians and foreigners at prices that equate to daily wages a block down the street.

I make enough to drive a decent car and keep my family in utilities, but I will never get over the fact that I have failed as a business man; I have not, and never will, achieve my dreams.

A commercial came on this morning that ruined my day. It was for Tata cars, or Kingfisher Air, or Johnson and Johnson—I can’t remember; but it featured a father working in Dubai and face chatting on an iPad with his 9 year old son. First of all, I want to be working in fucking Dubai; second of all, all I have is a fucking daughter, and she is so fat and ugly that I am probably going to have to spend half my bank account to get somebody to marry her; and thirdly, I was an early adopter, and my fucking iPad 1 doesn’t have video chat capability.

I thought about this while I had my morning tea, I thought about this on the drive to the coffee shop, I thought about this as I walked into the colorful and joyous hell hole I was the owner of.

And now this fuckhead waiter’s drawer is 200 rupees short.

I visit my place twice a week, and make sure the numbers are what they need to be; they are pretty good this week, but this motherfucker has somehow lost almost 2 coffees worth of rupees in the 2 hours the store has been open.

I can’t hold it in, plus I pay more than anybody else around so I can get away with letting loose on my workers. I scream at him. I call him a piece of shit peon. I call him the laziest Indian alive. I say his mother did a shit job of raising him. I say his father set a bad example for him. None of these words are making me feel better, though; the rage is still boiling up in me. I grab his arm and squeeze; he jumps back. I almost slap him. I have to keep my cool though, the foreigners are all looking now. I tell him to go to the utility closet. He doesn’t want to. I threaten to fire him. He contemplates this and ultimately hangs his head and drags his feet towards the closet.

I follow afterwards, put him over my knee, and spank the fuck out of him. For about 3 minutes I channel all the rage inside me into the palm of my hand. By the end of the spanking session I feel much better, and I feel as though I can make it at least one more week in the coffee shop business.