Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Sobering

The thing that struck me the most this week (other than the footage today of Notre Dame burning, which left me crying and sick to my stomach at work today) was that on Saturday I went to the grocery and the man in line ahead of me, who was older, was getting items that obviously indicated he lived alone-single meals and canned goods, mostly, things that could be heated up easily without actually cooking. He was using an EBT card (Food Stamps) and was having trouble because he didn't have enough on it. The cashier checked his balance and he thought she'd run his card, so he started to use his debit card for the balance, which wasn't going through because he didn't know his PIN and the chip was confusing him. I realised what was going on and asked if he was trying to run the EBT first, because he was using the wrong card, and the cashier had him swipe his EBT card, leaving a five dollar balance, but he couldn't get that debit card to work to save his life. It had been about ten minutes. At first I was a little annoyed at the inconvenience, but as it went on I really felt bad for him. The technology was thoroughly confusing and thwarting him. I told the cashier that if it didn't go through in the next attempt to put it on my order, which surprised her. Things have been tight for me as of late, but it was only $5, after all. Finally, with two cashiers and a bagger helping, they got it to go through. He went on his way, never realising that I'd tried to help, and that was fine. But it was like looking at my potential future. He was alone, a little doddering, at the end of his monthly benefit, trying to make ends meet, and if he'd used the wrong card, that might have been the money for his electric bill or something. I'm sure for him the simple act of shopping for groceries was both frustrating and embarrassing, given the all the hoops he needed to negotiate, for which he was woefully unprepared. I thought of how I would have felt. It was very sobering. I'm 52 now and much more conscious of getting old than I used to be. I could see myself like that in 20 years.

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