SHORT PLAY: TOPIC TODAY: Coping' with "inflation" A fancy word for 'acceptance'? Does true courage only belong to those struggling?

SCENE: A casual gathering at Work n Play restaurant. Late Evening.
​OLA (Sipping his beer, eyes fixed on his laptop):
​I saw the price of a small basket of tomatoes this morning. It's truly mind-boggling. We're effectively in an era where basic sustenance is a luxury. But the worst part is the acceptance.

​JENNIFER (Looking unimpressed):
​Acceptance is perhaps an inaccurate term, Ola. People are not accepting; they are coping with a state of hyper-inflation. As the economist John Maynard Keynes noted, "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." The masses are simply enduring the irrationality of the cost of living.
​NNE (Typing rapidly on her phone, not looking up):
​Naah. It’s definitely acceptance. We complain on Twitter, yet, still buy the overpriced stuff, and then make a TikTok content about our struggle meal. The practical action is to either revolt or switch our diets to something cheaper, but we do neither. We just rebrand suffering. It’s giving performative poverty.
​JIDE (Smiling wryly):
​Oh, Nne, you're so cynical, yet so accurate. We are the first generation to document our financial demise in 4D resolution. I think our courage, much like Ola defined it the other day, is now simply the ability to smile at the camera while eating #500 eggs and then go pay #20k for therapy to process the anxiety of paying the rent. We are heroes of financial optics.
​OLA (Scoffs, puts down his beer cup):
​See, Jide gets it, but he softens it with satire. The fundamental issue is that courage is fading. To truly disrupt this cycle, people need to stop viewing food as a consumer good and start viewing it as a right they are willing to fight for. The rich are comfortable, the middle class is distracted by debt, and the poor? They're just trying to survive today, which, I maintain, requires the only true courage left.
​ADA (Waving a hand dismissively):
​Guys, guys, guys. Inflation is a real bummer, obviously, but can you all please focus on the important thing? This yam and egg sauce is elite. If I'm going to go broke, I'm at least going to go broke with good vibes and good food. Y'all need to pick your battles. Today’s battle is defeating this yam and sauce.
​NNE (Finally looks up):
​Ada, that’s why the prices keep going up. You’re funding madness.
​ADA:
​(Shrugs) stomach-nomics!

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