After scanning in my beer and bag of potato chips, the cashier at the local convenience store said, “That’ll be $9.97. Would you like to round it up for a donation to the Children’s Cancer Fund?”
I thought, Three cents? That would be a pretty chintzy donation. I can’t do that. But the fact is, with high inflation and broken supply chains, I haven’t been feeling so generous in recent years.
“Not today,” I replied. Although she never uttered a sound in response, I could almost hear her thoughts: What a cheap son of a bitch.
When she handed me the three cents in change, I grabbed my groceries and waited for the customary “Thank you.” But after several uncomfortable seconds, her silence told me there would be no “Thank you,” no “Have a nice day.” So I said, “Thanks,” and left. Thanks? I asked myself. For What? Giving me my change? Why did I thank her? I never used to be such a sensitive person. Could it be that a Post-Pandemic Stress Syndrome let this situation get to me, past my normally thick defensive walls?
Those protective walls, with an added aura of detachment, are a survival strategy that I attribute to growing up in Chicago. I’ve seen it in other folks from big cities; it’s what we use to fend off scam artists and other predators. For example, on any trip to downtown, a person is likely to be approached at least once by someone asking for money: “Can you loan me a dollar?” When this happens, you don’t slow down, and you definitely do not stop or engage the person in conversation. You simply keep walking, eyes facing forward. A firm “No!” might be allowed, but you’re better off not saying anything. Any hesitation will be viewed as weakness. As the late Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, once said, “Weakness is provocative.” Now, this may seem crass, but the alternative would be to “loan” out money willy-nilly with absolutely no hope of ever seeing it again.
How far should this attitude be taken? I once saw a man crawling along the sidewalk during a typical busy downtown Chicago morning; over and over he shouted, “Help me, help, someone help!” Every person who passed, and there were many, stepped around him and kept on walking, not even slackening their pace; and this made me wonder if he was a daily fixture in the neighborhood. Maybe he was not really in dire need of assistance; maybe he was only waiting for a person soft-hearted enough to “lend” him money. Eventually, that person would come along, and he knew it. I once read an article about street people begging for money; in one example, the article told of a street person who actually lived in a nice suburban home; the “job” he commuted to every day was begging for money in the streets of downtown. One must always be wary of scam artists, especially in a big city. And so, you walk on, so does everyone else, and you’re an invisible, anonymous part of the compassionless crowd.
Now, take that same person with the hard exterior shell out of Chicago and place him in a small town. Suddenly, he doesn’t blend in as well. Just one example may suffice. Over fifteen years ago, my newly-wed wife Julie and I were walking from a parking area toward a venue to hear a lecture— on birds and nature, I believe—at a small Sangamon River town in central Illinois. As we walked along, I could see further ahead at one of the building’s entrances that an old woman was lying on the ground near the door. I quietly said to Julie, motioning with my hand, “Go around to the other door.” Julie, who grew up in a small town, looked at me with shock and maybe a bit of derision, saying, “No, we have to help her!” And she quickly left my side to help the old woman, who by now had two other folks about to help. So the situation’s being taken care of, I thought. But Julie proceeded onward, with me reluctantly following. And wouldn’t you know it, Julie actually knew the woman! Later I tried to explain how I had been conditioned in the big city to avoid scam artists who fake illnesses, and if you get involved with someone else’s accident, you’re opening up yourself to a lawsuit. Yes, I’m a victim. But Julie just responded by saying, “She wasn’t scamming anyone for money; she’s an old woman who fell and needed help! They took her to Emergency at the hospital.” I remember thinking at the time that it was a good thing we were married and not simply engaged to be married.
Although I have been away from Chicago for over three decades, and I worry about softening, I believe at least the foundations of my social interaction skills have remained intact, despite occasionally questioning my own reactions to certain situations. For instance, there was the time I witnessed a man’s car running out of gas in the center of a major intersection in Murphysboro in southern Illinois. I stood observing the situation from inside a nearby corner gas station, about 200 feet from the stranded car, with a few people ahead of me in line. The twenty-something driver, a Pillsbury Doughboy sort of man with baggy sweatpants, ran with two large empty gas containers to the pumps and then entered the station in a panic after seeing the long line of customers waiting to pay. He begged and pleaded to be allowed to cut in line. Of course, the cashier let him go ahead of everyone else. No one complained. I briefly wondered why he had two gas cans, where one, with just a bit of gas, would have been sufficient to get his car moving, at which point he could have then driven to a gas pump for more. I began to think this man was a bit lacking in some common sense.
After he paid for his fuel, he quickly ran for his car, struggling all the while with the obviously heavy containers of fuel, one in each hand. It was at that point I noticed his sweatpants were quite a bit lower on his waist than when I first saw him. And as he ran, just as I thought his pants might fall down, they did, indeed, give way to the earth’s gravitational pull: to his ankles, entangling his feet, and abruptly and quickly tripping him up. The gas containers went flying as he lurched forward, all the way to the ground, face forward. I thought, Good thing he was wearing underwear.
As I stood in line, the thought occurred to me that maybe I should have offered to help him carry the gas back to his car. Since no one else in this small-town gas station offered help, on that point my conscious remained clear. This man, I remember thinking at the time, was more than just unlucky; he probably had that kind of thing happen to him all the time (maybe minus the pants falling down), going through life, as he was, without much common sense. I simply could not feel sorry for him, even if he was Jesus in disguise. And if I had helped him, I would have lost my place in line. And for what? To be his enabler, so he would never learn common sense. But at least I became undetached enough to think about helping.
Maybe on my next visit to a convenience store, I’ll donate three cents to whatever charity they’re promoting. No, let’s round it up to a nickel.