Except for the Cat

Everyone knows that you never go to Cost Co. on a Saturday afternoon. But somehow I'd gone through 100 bottles of carbonated water and the dogs would start to eat furniture if I didn't pick up their weekly ration of Duck jerky.

So there I was, among a sea of people who seemed to have no social skills at all. They pushed their carts blindly through the wide isle, steering their grocery filled vehicles right down the middle, daring fellow shoppers to try to get by or even stop to look at something. Their sole goal it seemed, was to take down as many shoppers as possible. In one isle, a woman had bent down to find a DVD and another shopper flew past her, clipping her in the butt, sending her spinning like a top through the store, her copy of the latest Disney release gripped tightly in her hand. The guy that hit her never even looked back and if the truth be known, no other shoppers even noticed. The poor woman, finally coming to a rest in the foreign grown produce department, steadied herself and continued shopping. Casualty of war I guess.

What happens to us when we get inside these big box warehouses? I've seen my own husband grip the handle of our cart until his knuckles turn white and forge past an elderly couple who had just ventured out to get a monster sized bottle of Metamucil.

When asked why a normally docile man had become so aggressive, he replies, "They'd do it to me."

And he's right. It's like there are no standards in these types of stores. But last Saturday, I entered the store, knowing full well that it would be a mad house. I inched my way past the flatbed carts, around the crowds who gather in front of the food demonstrators. The store was so crowded that I finally decided to abandon my cart at the end of each isle and just walk through, gathering what I needed and hauling it back to my cart. Even that task was nearly impossible. The carts flew past me so quickly that I found myself flat against the boxes of cereal, determined to get out of this store without being as rude as the folks around me. As I wiggled along the wall of cereal, I imagined myself using my purse as a weapon, lashing out with it, hitting people behind the knees and watching them fall, just so I could get back to my cart.

Ugly. So ugly. For a moment I thought about abandoning the products that I'd just spend two hours collecting, but I knew that the dogs would be waiting in the driveway at home, knowing that a bag of dried duck would be pulled from the back of the SUV.

I was finally out of the store. A light rain was falling and I worried about the onion covered hot dog I had balancing on top a case of bottled water. I worked quickly in the rain, hoping to get everything in the car before the boxes got soggy. A man with a cane walked up to the car next to me and opened the back of his mini-van. In his cart he had a large container of detergent and a case of cat food.

"Looks like you got off easy," I said to him, still shoveling food into the back of my car.

"Oh yeah," he said, putting his items in the van. "But then, there's only me. I'm alone." I nodded, not quite sure what to say after than. The man finished arranging his purchases and without looking up said, "Well, alone except for the cat." Then he looked up and worked at a smile.

Suddenly all that anger I'd worked up in the store melted away. There we were, two strangers in a parking lot. One of us had bought enough food to feed two grandkids and a hungry husband for a week. I had a 50 pound bag of dry dog food and a 50 pound container of kitty litter. The man had all he needed: detergent to wash his own clothes with and something for his cat.

It's not often that I am at a loss for words but I wasn't sure what to say. I knew that he had lost his wife, and since he was about my age, his wife must have been too. She was too young to die and he was too young to be alone.

I wondered if he saw the ugliness in that ocean of violent shoppers inside the store? Or did he see families preparing for the week ahead? I wanted to hug him and I'm not a hugger. The man worked to get himself in his van, pulling his cane in after he'd gotten behind the wheel. I couldn't just let him drive off and so I said, "Hey, have you got a computer?"

"Oh sure," he said, turning to look back at me. "I don't use it much."

"Have you gone on any of those sites where you can meet people, like Facebook? There's a lot of people who are alone out there, " I offered, feeling that I needed to fix it for this man. As if going on line and sending words back and forth to strangers would ever fill the void that he now had in his life. But surely, words from others who are reaching out, are better than no words at all.

The man turned back to his steering wheel, no doubt wondering why this wet blond in the parking lot felt that she needed to talk to him. I started to say something but stopped myself. As he backed out of his parking place, he rolled down the window and said, "I'm not ready."

God. Did I effect anyone's life enough to have them say that they were "not ready"? Was I as unreplaceable as this man's wife was? There was a peacefulness about him that made me remind myself that we aren't all ugly. There are others out there who still have those common social skills and can take a minute to share their life. Odds are I won't see the man again, but I'll never forget him. "Take good care of that cat," I called out to him. He raised his hand in a friendly goodbye and drove off.

Somewhere a cat napped silently on the foot of a bed, knowing that a man who cared for it would be home soon.