Started August 8, 2026
On the way home from work yesterday I remembered we were almost out of milk. And since part of my recovery plan from surviving another day at my job during hellish levels of South Carolina summer heat and humidity is enjoying a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles cereal; I knew I had to make a “short” side quest to the grocery store.
So, I chose to visit the Lowe’s Foods grocery store about two miles from my house. Since I was only picking up a gallon of milk I intended to use cash. Small purchases with a debt card just mean added fees and another pain-in-the-ass when it comes time to balance the checkbook.
Years before while visiting Key West I got a bit of a lecture from a clerk at a t-shirt shop about how how his store gets hit with different fees when debt cards are used. That on small purchases the debt card fees cut the profit margin to the point he might as well just give stuff away for free. The look on the store clerk’s face was one of genuine annoyance and pain.
Fucking banks. But since my purchases were just a couple of Key West bumper stickers I sheepishly put the debt away and pulled out ten bucks to buy the items.
But anyway, returning to the present I pulled the jug of milk out of the cooler and proceeded to the checkout. As I walked up the aisle I had pleasurable dreams of getting home, pouring Cocoa Pebbles into a bowl followed by the milk.
Dammit! My local Lowe’s Foods only had two full service checkouts open and the lines for both stretched somewhere from fifty to a hundred meters. Yes, I and totally serious. Now my local Lowe’s did have four self-checkout kiosks but in the infinite wisdom of corporate America they only take debt cards!
Fucking banks. So that should explain my strange and disjointed mention of the Key West t-shirt store.
As much as I would have loved putting the milk back and driving to another grocery store that just didn’t make any sense. There was a Publix a little over a mile down the road. But when you throw in the hassle of it all I decided to just suffer through and take my place in one of the checkout lines.
That’s when I noticed the lady at the cash register.
She was at least in her later sixties to early seventies. No, I’m not being unkind or exaggerating. And she was obviously new to that job. And since I’m a bleeding heart, social justice warrior, my assumption was that this lady was working to to make ends meet. This lady was catching Hell scanning items and figuring out how to input codes for things like fruits and vegetables. No one in this wide world would be able to convince me that poor woman was behind the cash register because she “wanted to stay busy during her Golden Years.”
Watching her I remembered some McDonald’s hamburger place propaganda from back in the 1990s. The suits in charge of the hamburger clown ran a series of commercials trying to recruit retired folks work for them saying a job there was a fun way to stay busy and meet people.
Holy fucking shit, the visuals during these commercials showed healthy gray haired folks flipping burgers, taking orders, and mopping the floors with huge inane smiles. The only older folks I ever saw working at McDonald’s back then were people struggling to perform the most basic tasks.
As with the older lady at the checkout at Lowe’s Foods it didn’t take a sociologist to understand I was seeing desperation.
How much money did the US Government spend for the war in Iraq? Last I heard a conservative estimate says four trillion. How much has been spent “fighting” Iran since that deranged pervert living in the White House last declared total victory?
Always plenty of money for war but don’t say a damn thing about diverting funds to help folks. They’ll call you a communist out to destroy Jesus, capitalism, apple pie, and all that other crap.
Eventually the checkout line moved enough for me to pay for my milk. I walked back outside knowing I would soon be enjoying my precious bowl of Cocoa Pebbles.
Hey, don’t give me any grief over my Cocoa Pebbles. Our world and country has been an absurd parody itself this entire century. With the rich and powerful manning the controls of the crapfest called civilization all each of us lowly plebs can do is find whatever solace is available.
Personally, I want to hang bastards from lamppost. But I get told that’s too extreme.
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