on my hands and knees. scrubbing sticky spilled beverage off of the floor. it was heavily flavored with (artificial) vanilla, had a strong scent. so sticky, so much sugar. a customer had dropped a beverage can. management had said “don’t worry, we can write it off, it’s not that expensive. go wipe it up.” outside, it was snowing, heavily. there with me on the floor, puddles of melted snow, grimey, brought indoors by customers’ boots. apron stained. while there, on the floor, repetitive scrubbing, i considered that an English sugar-plantation-owner in Barbados in the 1790s was likely to have been 5-times richer than their wealthiest land-owning (white) childhood friends still living back in Britain proper. i wondered how vanilla has come to be so inexpensive. (is it actually “inexpensive”? or do landscapes and people still die to grow and harvest it?) where did this vanilla come from? where was the coffee grown? all of this sugar just tossed aside. like nothing. 125, 200, 350 years ago, vast amounts of people were enslaved and died for this sugar. entire communities, whole cultures invaded, destroyed, to bring Empires sugar, the Georgian-era equivalent of this spilled “BANG Birthday Cake Bash (TRADEMARKED) Keto-Coffee Protrein-Enhanced Energy Drink” which i’m scrubbing off of the floor, on my knees, almost in an act of worship. “we can write it off.” in 1540, how many people were murdered in Central America by Spanish colonizers to acquire this amount of vanilla for shipment back to a court in Iberia? in 1610, how much reward would an Italian merchant vessel have earned for delivering this coffee from North Africa to Venice? in 1805, how much cash would a London tea-shop-owner have paid for this sugar? all so easily acquired, now? in 2020, how many people still work and die so that these ingredients can be shipped to the Europe and the US, offered at such “inexpensive” price? now all of these substances are just … a sticky puddle on the floor? a stain on the apron? after scrubbing the floor, i entered the walk-in cooler, the white noise of the fans a reprieve, to read the list of ingredients on the labels of the coffee/energy drinks. “guava.” “acai berry.” “Nesquik Double Chocolate ready-to-drink milk.” how did it get here? a loud ringing. motion detectors. customers are entering the store. too much stimulation. supposed to be “working.” don’t know how long i have stood in the cooler. deep breath. attempt to revert to normal workplace behavior and thoughts. had to go back to “helping customers.” cannot openly discuss botany and colonization and land-theft of Regency-era British Empire. i leave the cooler. same day, a co-worker: “hey, check out the new hand lotion, really helps with the bleach burns, smells awesome!” me: “oh?” she says: “coconut and vanilla!” again my thoughts are dragged away: “what harms have come to the islands of the South Pacific? how did this substance extracted from tropical plants find its way here, to this snowy landscape? why is the coconut-oil lotion so cheap? who paid the real cost to bring it here? this process was not passive. which institutions stole local plant knowledge and patented this variety of the plant? who was forced under duress to harvest the coconut?” violence.
