Grocery Scanner – Thoughts from December 3 and 4, 2022

December 3, 2022

Patti came in with me to work today so she could go into the park. We stopped by a local Walmarket on the way in. As spell check reminds me, Walmarket is not its real name, but that’s what we call it. I needed blueberries and hair gel. The hair gel was the bigger emergency. The last bit of gel squeezed out of the tube this morning and I discovered it was my last one. I wasn’t out of the blueberries, but I knew I would runout soon. The blueberries were at the back of the highest refrigerated shelf and I had to reach to the back to get them. The only ones they had were organic. I avoid buying organic produce if I can. Today, I couldn’t.

We were at the self-checkout and the gel rang up fine. I scanned the blueberries, and the machine claimed the store didn’t sell them. Someone came and tried to enter the number manually. I knew that wouldn’t work, but I let her try … twice. Eventually, a manager-type person came over and tried looking the blueberries up on her phone. That didn’t work at first, but she eventually got the machine to accept it. I went to pay and the machine said there was an unacceptable item. This was probably not exactly what it said, but that was the gist. I was about to give up on the blueberries when they got them to work. We were in the store for about 20 minutes.

November 4, 2022

After Patti left the park yesterday, she was going to the top level of the parking structure where she parked to drop some stuff off. She was going up an escalator, and she heard a loud bang as if something fell. Someone told her not to look when she was going to look toward the area of the noise. She found out that a man had jumped off the top level of the parking structure and that was the sound she heard. He apparently specifically came to that area to commit suicide. This was particularly disturbing to Patti, especially since he picked an area where kids could be present. They kept people away from the area. Patti stayed on the top of the parking structure until I was off work and joined her. We were talking about it on the way home and we had to admit that it’s a good thing we were both bad at suicide. It’s a selfish act, but one that comes when people feel they are alone. Feeling alone is a mental state that is not based on reality. Rarely is a person actually alone with no one in their life that could help them.

Patti and I have each other but some people have no one close they can talk to. The main take away from this tragedy might just be to appreciate what we have and not what we don’t. Suicide is not a pleasant subject, but it is necessary. If we treat it like we do car accident deaths, we ignore a major problem in society. Accidents happen because we ignore our personal safety. Suicide happens because society has ignored the mental health of its citizens. Both Patti and I have had suicidal thoughts in our past, but we are better at handling our mental health these days. I wish more people cared about the suicidal thoughts of others. People’s beliefs, competition, and hate are the main reasons things won’t change soon. Until we eliminate these from society, nothing will change for people who have suicidal thoughts. We should never ignore depression and low self-esteem in other people.