One ordinary afternoon, in an ordinary Canary Island town, Ayoze, a middle-class kid about to turn thirty, decides to do the maths to make ends meet. With his mobile phone calculator in hand, he faces the reality of his salary, which is more like a tip than a wage. Suddenly, he remembers reading in elburgado.com something about MEPs' salaries. "Let's see how much these political geniuses earn," he says.
After looking up the news, he almost fell off his chair. "Four figures? And they don't start with a 1! With that I pay the three months' rent I owe, the second-hand car I bought from a rental house, a nice present for Guaci and even enough to buy sweets for my dog Idefix," he exclaims. He can't help but imagine the life of an MEP: breakfasts in Paris, lunches in Brussels and dinners in Rome. All, of course, at the taxpayer's expense.
In the meantime, Ayoze manages to stretch his salary. "If I'm lucky, I'll be able to have a leg sandwich for dinner and, if the month has been good, I'll put an avocado slice on it," he thinks. Ayoze's life, compared to that of an MEP, is more like a survival episode than a sitcom.
One day, he decides to go to a neighbourhood meeting on how to improve the local park. Amidst speeches from neighbours and promises to pave the basketball court, someone exclaims: "We need to ask our representatives in the European Parliament for help". Ayoze almost pees with laughter and can't help but let out a nervous laugh. "And while they're deciding, my goddaughter Andrea is getting old waiting for the swing to be fixed," he says.
Ayoze's disbelief in politics continues to grow. On one of his sleepless nights, he dreams of becoming an MEP. In his short nap, he is surrounded by papers, stamps and machine coffees. Someone asks him if he wants an official car and he, with tears of emotion, replies: "Can I take it home? It's just that mine doesn't pass the MOT". But when he wakes up, he realises that his car is still a piece of junk and that he is still a middle-class Euro-citizen.
Ayoze begins to see politics as a kind of luxury TV series, in which he only has an extra role. His girlfriend says: "Don't be bitter, my boy, at least we don't have to deal with gala dinners and endless speeches". Ayoze smiles, knowing that in his life the only gala dinners are the ones at the supermarket and the speeches are the ones his mother gives him when he is not visiting her.
At the end of the day, he decides that the only way to face life with humour is to accept his reality. While MEPs argue about the best way to spend the EU budget, some even singing "Twist & Shout" and others ruining the future of their political group, he settles for finding the best deal in the local shop. And so, amidst laughter and calculation, he carries on, proving that a sense of humour is the real priceless wage.
