Working at Fred Meyer granted me the distinguished pleasure of observing and in rare cases interacting with some strange human beings. I say rare because after they were on my crazy radar I would just walk the other way when I spotted them. Most of these people would be in the store every night, often for three or more hours at a time. These people weren't homeless in the stinky or dirty sense but they didn't really appear as if they had any place they called home, except the Lake City Fred Meyer.
There was an middle aged, over weight woman that would sit in the display furniture for five plus hours, reading the first 30 pages of about 50 books she had taken off the shelves. I often wonder why the hell she didn't just poach at the library?
There was a blind disabled gentleman that would buzz around in his wheel chair asking me to read the instructional information off products and bend steel bars on his chair to secure his grocery bags. Never nice about it, he always made you feel like you were his servant.
Like moths to a flame these ilk are drawn to the wobbly clearance racks. A 50% off, hot pink, panther pattered, bean bag chair would look perfect plopped in front of your television and at $6.15 who could resist!?
On this particular day, a regular crazy was sifting through the various wares strewn about the rack. This woman always fooled me because from the back she always looked normal, albeit attractive.
I asked her, "Are you finding everything okay today?"
She turned around and I immediately realized that I had done. Those ugly sunglasses and the crazy caked make-up; I knew I had to get out of there and fast.
She picked up a lime green wash cloth and unfolded it.
"Are these 100% cotton?" She asked while stretching out the tag like it was some the embroidered text was going to grow three font sizes larger.
"I don't know," I said as I quickly thought of a plan to escape.
"Well if they are, this is a great deal! Didn't you hear? The cotton fields are burning to the ground," she declared.
Now when she said this, I was intrigued. Was this somehow true or was she just talking crazier than her poorly stenciled eyebrows? I decided the later made more sense and I smiled to myself saying, "I hadn't heard that. Will you excuse me?" With that I slinked off out her line of sight.
Her comment of the cotton fields burning humorously resonated with me though as if she was comparing cotton to a precious metal that was no longer found in the soil.
I had to share this with a co-worker.
So I was sorting through the return carts when my manager walked up and smiled at me. Without hesitation I looked her straight in the eye and with that 'I am sorry but your son has cancer' tone said, "Did you hear? The cotton fields are burning." As the -ing came out of my mouth I realized exactly what I had done.
"What?!" she said.
"Oh, no...I'm sorry I didn't mean to.."
"You can't say things like that to black people," she smiled at me. Obviously seeing how uncomfortable I became after I had realized what I'd done.
So if you didn't know, I'm a terrible person and a racist.
You've been warned.
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