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Shopping for Humanity at Food Lion
A patient of mine worked very hard, took a lot of risks, and started a business early in life that did extremely well. He still owns it but is much less involved in the day-to-day operations now. He pretty much retired in his mid-50s, and he now owns a home in the Caribbean, a home on a lake in a gated community near the mid-size city where his business is, and a very nice home here in Hilton Head. He splits his time between his three homes and travels around to play golf. He’s now in his late 60s and is a very happy and pleasant guy. I always enjoy seeing him. On our last visit, he told me an interesting story. He was at his home near his business, and went out for groceries:
I always go to the Whole Foods there. I like the stuff they have, and there’s always nice people in there. Anyway, they didn’t have something I wanted, so I went to the Food Lion across the street. Now again, in the Whole Foods, there were a lot of nice people, nice clothes, nice cars in the parking lot. Everybody’s wearing masks, social distancing – I felt really comfortable in there. But then I cross the street and park at Food Lion next to a bunch of beat up pickup trucks, everybody in there is fat, dirty, no teeth, no masks, and no social distancing. I was uncomfortable, and I couldn’t wait to get away from that store.
I got the couple things that I needed and hustled up to the line for the cash register. There was this short fat lady in front of me, checking out. Long stringy hair, no makeup, not a lot of teeth. She gives the checkout girl (who was even heavier than the lady in line) a debit card, then gets two twenties back as change, or a cash withdrawal or whatever. She gives one of the twenties back to the checkout girl, says something, and then leaves with all her stuff. I thought that was a little odd, but whatever. Get me out of here – I don’t care what’s going on in this place. None of my business.
So I give my items to the checkout girl, she scans them, and gives me a receipt plus about ten dollars in change. I told her, “I haven’t paid you yet. Why are you giving me change?”
The heavy checkout girl says, “The lady in front of me gave me $20 to go toward your groceries. You only got a couple things – this is your change.”
I said, “Oh wow. Look. I don’t need it. I have money. I’ll pay. Really.”
She replied, “No need. It’s covered.”
I said, “Why don’t you keep the $20? Get something you need. Again, I really don’t need it.”
The checkout girl smiled sheepishly and said, “Look, she said she worked a couple extra shifts and came out a bit ahead at the end of the month, so she wanted to help somebody out. She asked me to give this to you. So I am.”
“You should keep it.”
“I can’t. I told her I would give it to you.”
So my patient thanked her, took his small bag of groceries, and left the store, with tears in his eyes.
He and I just sat there in the exam room, for a minute. I didn’t say anything.
He said, “It’s so easy to judge people, you know? But there are some really good people out there. Which is easy to forget sometimes.”
The overweight customer at Food Lion had worked a couple of extra shifts and felt more financially comfortable at the end of the month. But she knew what it was like to be short on cash, so she was happy to help someone less fortunate than her. Many of her neighbors are ‘less fortunate.’ She’s been ‘less fortunate.’ Recently. She understands.
As we continue to distance ourselves physically and emotionally from our fellow Americans, and as our society becomes increasingly divided and tribal, it becomes more difficult to empathize with others who aren’t like us. After all, everyone we know is exactly like us.
All the things that divide our society – from social classes, to cell phones, to COVID, to social media, to politics, to anything else that divides us – all those things make empathy harder. It was hard already. It’s much harder now. And even though empathy is hard, that’s what makes us human.
We’re losing our humanity. My patient just had that shoved in his face at a crummy grocery store. Today, he felt the need to shove it in my face. Which I really do appreciate.
But many of us just carry on day to day, interacting virtually only with our ever-shrinking tribes, and scorning everyone else. Whatever. Forget them.
But when we forget them, we forget ourselves. We forget what makes us human to begin with. We forget empathy. After a while, we don’t really understand empathy. It doesn’t even make sense to us anymore. Everything is fine.
As we isolate ourselves from other people’s concerns, we also isolate ourselves from our own humanity. And we don’t even notice. It’s easier if we don’t, actually. Instacart and DoorDash are so handy. Plus, there’s a new series on Netflix! Yay!
We’re losing our humanity.
Well, many of us are. Not that certain overweight shopper that my patient met. Not her. Not only has she maintained her humanity, she even attempted to show his humanity to him. And he did the same to me. He’s probably shared with others as well. I’d say she got her money’s worth – she improved a lot of lives, for only $20. She would be pleased.
All of us humans should make it our mission in life to remind other humans that we are all human.
Empathy makes us human. And our humanity is inside all of us. Even if we ignore it from time to time. It’s still there.
But I think that ignoring our humanity is unnatural, and it makes us feel sad and empty. The isolation from social media, COVID, etc have caused epidemics of depression in our society. But you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on psych drugs and therapy to find your humanity.
After all, my patient found his for only $20.
Published in General
Because they’re proving they’re not raaaaaacists! They only sell BIEOC (brown indigenous eggs of color; unfortunately they’re all white on the inside).
So much Deja vu in this video. We have been doing a lot of traveling this last year. We needed to take my in-laws possessions to Boise last May, and we stopped at that Walmart in Idaho Spring to fill up (mileage goes down a bunch when towing a fulls size U-Hauls). When we are towing or 28′ RV, our go to evening stops are Walmarts because they encourage us with their large mostly quiet parking lots, rest rooms, long open hours, and having the amenities one needs to keep moving. The nice folks at the Rapid City Walmart (which is kind of in the middle of nowhere) we were able to repair a couple of failing trailer tires with so little impact on our traveling schedule. I remain faithful to the Walmart ethos.
The last bit of Deja vu is we have been holing up for the last few months in Fredericksburg Tx at an RV park while I finish the engine installation on my airplane. The outfit that sells my engine is located at the airfield here. So it’s kind of amazing to again recognize his aerial footage of where I get my groceries every few days (there are small fridges in RV’s ,so shopping is frequent). Just a few weeks ago wife found someone’s wallet in the parking lot of the other grocery store in town (an HEB) and returned the favor just as this man has witnessed.
I have been favored in this life, and certainly in the higher tiers economically than most of my fellow citizens. I do not have to shop with the much maligned “Walmart clientele”, but I cannot bring myself to lord over them. My first hand experiences have shown they are mostly good citizens and I find myself respecting there judgement over my more affluent neighbors back home in my coastal base of Annapolis Maryland.
We are all our brother’s keepers, and I try to remember that as I have been traveling through what the left so derisively label as fly over country.
No. It’s always the haves who hate capitalism and the decent mores that make capitalism work who hate capitalism. On this, Roger Scruton and Paul Johnson are in perfect agreement.
I wasn’t talking about the hating capitalist and I was talking about them hating Theis hating their fellow man
Organic spoils a lot faster. If you’re going to buy organic produce you better eat it soon.
I suggest that the two are related. If you love people, you’d want them to become prosperous and have their property protected. If you hate people, you hate what makes them succeed.
Is that actually true? Why?
https://www.acsh.org/news/2015/09/04/why-more-organic-food-means-more-safety-recalls
In summary the drugs we use to grow the crops keep bugs and bacteria away. Pesticides are the riskiest drugs because they kill animals and we humans are animals.
Thank you! I needed this today.
When I clone you after the American Civil War to restart society, I will add some Thomas Sowell DNA to the clones in order to make them more sensible about humanity’s capacity for evil.
What makes us human is empathizing with members of our own tribe in order to conquer other tribes. Dehumanizing other people in order to kill or conquer them is just as human as empathy and kindness. Your lovely friend was denying his humanity. Absolutely good for him but we need to realize that being is what we should fight against.
Oh SURE, Doc. Make me cry on Friday.
Happy now, Humanity Lad? :-)
Another fine post, Doc. On the topic of judging people based on their appearance, what do you think of men with long beards and tattoos? I hope you aren’t suggesting that we give them a pass.
As I mentioned in that post, and in the comments, I don’t care.
I also don’t understand this recent fashion trend of tattooed, bearded, 26 year old software developers who do yoga. I don’t understand fashion trends in general. I don’t understand this one, either. And I wondered whether it might have something to do with another modern trend: trans-sexualism. I really have no idea. I just found it interesting. You might think that they are unrelated. And you might be right. I don’t know.
But to answer your question above, I don’t care if someone has a beard or not. Or a tattoo.
What interested me was a new fashion trend, which I didn’t understand.
Which I said in the post. And in the comments.
People also have preconceived ideas about Walmart shoppers. I went in one to buy several sets of reading glasses to donate to the Christ Central place that takes in homeless vets. I was talking to the lady behind me explaining the glasses. She whipped out $20 and told me to go across the parking lot to Dollar Tree and buy some there for $1 ea and give to the vets for her.
There is great agape among many Americans. Not least among the humble. May Fortuna be her friend.
I once worked with a guy who said he would never shop at Walmart because of the low class of their clientele. I told him my wife and I go their all the time, and I’ve never seen evidence that the people who shop there are any different from the population at large. I don’t know if his opinion was based on his actual experience or just the internet memes about low-brow Walmart shoppers.
There is a website called People of Walmart that photographs people who shop late at night and dress like they think no one will be looking, truly fashion-challenged people in general, and probably a few ringers.
The extremes are taken as the general.
It would be as though people assumed all Republicans painted their faces and dressed in horned buffalo robes, when in fact it’s only about 15% of us tops.
You could probably hang out at some very expensive hotels and take pictures of select visitors and post them with the caption, “This is where all the pimps stay in Baltimore!” Or whatever big city you please.
This blows up my “Django is black” theory. :-)
I was on the receiving end of a charitable contribution once. I live in MA but I am in Houston and Dallas regularly on business. My daughter had some issues while deployed to Korea. When she got back to the states I immediately flew to Fort Hood in Killeen, TX. She was having emergency surgery. It wasn’t life threatening but not pretty either when it’s your little girl.
When I got to the hospital on post the receptionist asked if I have a place to stay. I have been on post there visiting many times before. There is only one hotel. They call it a Holiday Inn. It’s converted old barracks but its clean and a good free breakfast all for $79/night. Except for the cannon that goes off at 6am outside your window it’s great. I told the nice lady, sure. I’m staying at the Holiday Inn. She said, “no you’re not. I already called the Fisher House and they are expecting you.” I told her my company was paying for it anyways. I thought she was going to call the MP’s! I told her I would go but to be truthful I got lost finding it, so I stayed at the Holiday Inn. I did make a donation when I got home. Everyone there was like that. Knowing my daughter was in good hands meant far more to me than a $79 room.
A picture of a drugged out Hunter Biden would be a good reply.