gabro:unfiltered – Independence Day 2025 edition
🌃✨☕🥀💵🗽
It’s a quarter until 3am on the Fourth of July in Las Vegas, and I’m currently in a committed, spiritual, possibly sexual relationship with an Impossible breakfast sandwich. Not because it’s good (it’s an acquired taste?), but because it’s warm, salty, and cheaper than screaming into a canyon about capitalism.
I’m also sipping a flat white that tastes like hope and smells like rent.
🎆💥Let freedom ring, baby.💥🎆
Here’s the real independence: choosing plant-based sadness over greasy regret at 2AM, alone in a kitchen lit like an interrogation room, wondering if dignity can be microwaved.
You ever hit that level of exhaustion where your body’s still vertical but your soul’s already horizontal, scrolling Zillow listings in the forest with no cell service? That’s me right now.
The floor’s been slow. Tips? Flaccid. Guests? Bland.
But my self-worth? Somehow… weirdly intact.
Because even when I’m broke, I’ve got this unkillable spark in me, the kind of delusional optimism that only service workers and theatre kids understand. We who survive on applause and tips, two currencies inflated by charisma and crushed by silence, we know what it means to declare independence every damn shift.
🌃✨☕🥀💵🗽
In case you’ve never experienced it, a 24-hour Starbucks in Vegas is like a freedom-themed fever dream. It’s quiet. It’s weird. There’s a drive-thru filled with tired people clinging to caffeine and consequences. It’s a church, but the communion is oat milk.
I ordered with the same hope our Founding Fathers probably had when they signed the Declaration:
“Please let this work out.”
And somewhere between the first bite of sandwich and second sip of foam, I had an epiphany:
I’m broke. Like “you ever check your bank account and laugh?” broke.
But I’m also still here. Still hot. Still showing up. That’s my revolution.
🌃✨☕🥀💵🗽
Now, I could’ve given you some juicy table drama. I could’ve said a guest tipped me a black chip and whispered “Happy Independence Day, king.” Or that a drunk girl wearing flag-themed flip-flops peed in a chip rack and we had to call security and a priest.
But honestly? Nothing happened. Just slow tables, small tips, and too much time to think.
So instead of fantasy, here’s the truth:
The silence between spins is louder than any firework.
And that silence? It’s been teaching me how to listen to myself.
🌃✨☕🥀💵🗽
My favorite silence isn’t really silence, it’s the sound of trees.
Not metaphorical trees. Actual trees. I hike. No music, no podcasts, no fake compliments. Just wind and birds and crunchy ground and space to breathe.
Out there, away from the neon and noise, I feel rich in all the ways the casino can’t measure.
Sometimes, standing in my kitchen at 2:45am eating a lukewarm sandwich, I can almost hear the trees again. That’s my real freedom — the one you can’t buy, fake, or tip for.
🌃✨☕🥀💵🗽
But I know what you came for. You came for the fireworks. The flag-waving. The rebellion.
So I present to you my version of the Constitution. The sacred scroll passed down through generations of broke badasses with strong backs, thick skin, and killer smiles.
THE BROKE BITCH TIP MANIFESTO 💅
(gabro’s Declaration of Independence for the tipped, the tired, and the unbothered)
1. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of tips. In that order.
2. If your check has three digits, your tip better have two. That’s the law.
3. “Great service!” without a tip is just taxation without representation.
4. I’m not asking for fireworks, just a thank-you with currency.
5. If I’m forced to be nice, you’re legally required to be generous.
6. You can’t gaslight someone who memorizes chip counts for a living.
7. Don’t call me a hero, just call me by my Venmo.
8. My independence was not sponsored by minimum wage.
9. Hot, broke, and caffeinated is a political statement.
10. I didn’t serve a revolution, but I do serve drinks. And baby, I deserve a raise.
✨ First Amendment ✨
The Right to Compensation for Emotional Labor
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That no worker shall be required to absorb guest trauma, decode passive aggression, fake laughter at dad jokes, smile through misogyny, or listen to conspiracy theories about slot machines without appropriate monetary compensation.
🟪 For every “you should smile more,” I demand hazard pay.
🟪 For every “we’re just gonna split the check like 17 ways,” I deserve a bonus.
🟪 For every “I’ll tip next time,” you owe me retroactive interest.
🟪 Emotional labor is real. And I am no longer offering it for free.
📝 Signed this day, under God, neon lights, and a mandatory 15-minute break every hour.
— gabro, Founding Baddie
of the Broke States of Survival
I don’t have fireworks.
I don’t have a parade.
I don’t even have enough to cover rent right now.
But I have this sandwich.
I have my truth.
And I have the audacity to keep going, even when the floor is dead and the tips are dead-er.
That’s independence, too.
Happy Fourth of July!
Gamble responsibly.
Tip like your freedom depends on it.
And always, ALWAYS, love loudly.
💋 Viva la broke bitch rebellion,
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