Semi-retired these days, I have a part-time job in a grocery
store. As with almost every job before this one it is as a laborer. Similar to my previous such
positions I am often placed in situations where I hear people talking, casually
discussing their lives. Never in my life would I intentionally eavesdrop, but
when you are quietly working and other people are talking nearby you cannot
help but hear what they say.
A few days ago I was stocking shelves with produce—fresh vegetables,
fruit, salads, and the like, and I heard a young woman talking to her son. The
boy was about five or six years old. So his mom must have been very young when
she had him because she couldn’t have been older than 23 or so.
The young woman was pushing one of the smaller grocery carts—the
kind that’s about one-third the size of a normal cart. She was very carefully
picking things out to put in there. I have noticed this is how people shop when
they have little money and have to be sure not to put more than they can afford
into the buggy. She was doing this. There was not much in it and she was not
tossing things in there at random.
The boy had a small container of cut watermelon that his mom
had told him he could have. He looked back at the shelf and noticed a larger
container of it. He obviously liked watermelon and took down one of the larger
plastic boxes. “Nanna gave us $30.00. Do you think I could get the big one?” he
asked.
“I’m sorry, honey. But we already spent that money. We can’t
afford that one.”
“Okay,” he said, and put it back.
After a little while they were gone, and I filed the
experience there in the back of my mind with a million other such things that I
would probably never recall.
About fifteen minutes later I was told I needed to go to the
front of the store to a specific cash register. I did so, and as I got there I
knew that it was to retrieve merchandise that someone had decided not to buy so
that I could return it to the shelves. As I looked down at it, I realized that
almost everything that young woman had placed into that puny shopping cart was
lying on the checkout counter. Even the tiny container of cut watermelon for
her little boy.
And every day people ask me why I am so angry. When they say
this to me with these expressions of fat, complacent judgement on their
stinking faces I want to punch them all in the teeth. This horrible thing that
I saw is not rare. This nation is awash in human beings who are nearly
homeless, or already so. We have more billionaires living in unimaginable
luxury and greed than any nation has ever seen, and over half of our people are
the barest step ahead of homelessness and starvation.
1 comment:
I was ALMOST evicted from my lifelong home 5 years ago.
I've gotten VERY "political" since then.
I'm hoping for a peaceful revolution, but if a bloodbath is required, I'll happily watch from the bleachers.
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