The Day the Awareness Died

I get paid by way of retail.  I see the worst in people when they don't get what they have come for.

Standing in the aisle, minding my own, a man approaches on a mission.

"Do you have anymore of theeeeze?"  He impatiently shoves an empty bin under my nose.

"Sorry.  They're on order."  I say with a sigh as I don't actually work at this location.  I merely provide the consistently tardy product.

He scoffs in my face and storms off.  I feel relieved as this was a relatively innocuous exchange.  Back to the doldrums and daydream I head.  Blissful in my thoughts of the beach, he returns with an actual employee and shoves the bin under his nose.  The employee looks to me for aid and I side-step over to assist, stating once more that the product desired, is on order.  Perhaps my previous answer was not clear.  Perhaps the man thought I had no idea what I was on about.  Perhaps the man is a total twat.

"Well!  You have been out of theeeeze...for three days!"  He, clearly not concerned with escalating a perfectly inoffensive exchange, begins to grow red in his already bloated and useless face.

He once more stomps away, defeated and seething.  I'm not sure what goes on in that twats day.  I don't think I want to know.  I do feel curious only because when I pontificate on what others can go through in three days and not only survive, but not bitch about it, it really puts things into perspective.  I felt my sanity wane as I thought about those that haven't had food in three days, or clean drinking water.  People who suffer grave injustice at the hands of others.  People who are bombed, raped, tortured, starved, beaten...I'm not sure they would see the merit in the things most of us take for granted and then complain about.  We are all children throwing tantrums until we are granted what we want.  It sickens me.

I ponder if it was his emotional state that drove him to the over-reaction?  Why did he allow himself to become so riled up by something so inexplicably harmless?  Why was the product not being there when he demanded it, such an affront to his mental and emotional state?  Did that product have some kind of special meaning to him?  Had he been told No, everyday of his life for the last forty years and today was the day he couldn't take it anymore?  Why does awareness go out the window when we don't get what we want, or think we need?  The employee even tried to sooth the life-sucker by offering him another similar product that would have done the job just fine.  The man chortled some lame excuse for the substitute failing and dug himself even deeper into his self-made pit of loathing and despair.

This experience today may seem trivial to write about.  But, I believe this to be a microcosm for the way the world is currently progressing.  People have become so terrible, entitled, selfish, and unaware.  We all have bad days.  Alas, before vomiting our vitriol on one another, please take a moment to think about what others are capable of going through in the span of three days!... and how our time here, doesn't need to be as stressful as we structure it.