Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate
I stood in line to use the self checkout in the grocery store. It was 7:30 on a weekday morning, 38 degrees and raining outside.
A woman with long blonde hair was ahead me and began her purchase. She was of indeterminate age and homeless. She was wearing pink. I recognized her because I make it a point to recognize members of the homeless community in my neighborhood.
She scanned the following items: box of chocolate donuts, bottle of chocolate milk, carton of chocolate ice cream.
If it was meant as dubious breakfast fare, so be it. If it was meant as comfort food to survive the coming inclement day, so be it. If taxpayers were subsiding it via the Oregon Trail (food stamps) card, so be it. If you think this isn't the way anyone should end up in America, you would be right. How do we help people like her?
She completed her purchase and shuffled away. I watched her and questions peppered my mind:
Who are you?
What brought you to this point?
Why the chocolate fix?
Where are you going to find shelter from the rain and cold?
Do you want out of this life?
What is the one thing you need?
Ice cream?
What song means the most to you?
She disappeared out the door. For a moment I considered following her because I wanted to see what happened to all the chocolate and why the chocolate. The journalist in me wanted it.
But I didn't follow her. The novelist in me would have to imagine her life.
And standing there, I knew that was an impossibility.