The End of the Bar

The last time I was in a Meijer Thrifty Acres with my sister (the soldier) we were buying guacamole and beer and champagne and double stuffed Oreos for Easter. I recognized the woman ringing us up as the same woman you see chatting up whoever at the end of the neighborhood bar, the one that looks like she replaced beer and whiskey for daylight and meals long, long ago. That skinny eye-liner-ed biker woman with the clasp-lock cigarette holder and  million lines around her lips wearing levi’s and some kind of crystal somewhere – you know her. She’s friendly:

“How you guys doing?”

“We’re good. How about you?”

“Oh well ya know, I woke up this morning and no one was throwing dirt on me so I’m doing purty good.” She said it in a good natured, hey - shit-happens type of way, not the way your mother would say it. Then she continued to scan our stuff and said, “I’d rather go party with you guys….”

Let me tell you this - none of the horror stories of the supposed financial crisis hit me until I saw that this woman had to take a job at Meijer's. You can judge a society by how it cages its birds.

That is what I am thinking about right now. Yeah  sure,I woke up this morning and no one was throwing dirt on me (unless you count pledge week at WEVL) but I don’t like thinking about misplaced characters and empty barstools and someone timing our good lady’s smoke breaks. The unfairness of it all kills me. It is, as one would say, my dirt.