“The Bar”

I usually hit Costco every Saturday morning after my breakfast meeting with several friends and business associates. I normally will do one time a month that is a bulk buy of most of the things we will need during the month and the other times I’ll hit the local Fred Meyer (Kroger) for a few items to get us by.

Standing in line at Fred Meyer I had a revelation. That little plastic bar you put down to divide your purchase from the next person's purchase in front of or behind you is amazing; couldn't we all use that bar in other areas of our life? That is not my stuff, says your bar. I am not buying that, it tells other people. Don't mix your stuff with my stuff. These issues are not to be confused with my issues thank you very much.

I can just see it now you are in line for the movies when a guy starts telling you about his colon cancer. Boom, the bar comes down. The ex-wife or girlfriend is explaining how her new boyfriend just doesn't do things you used to. Boom, the bar comes down. Your Mama is reminding you again for the millionth time about that incident during 5th grade that left you without pants and the gym teacher was on the phone to her. Boom, the bar comes down!

Have you experienced check-out line “judgment”? I am standing there with my frozen pot pies; case of Coca Cola, Peanut Butter, and a quart of ice cream for my wife that you know will be eaten in one sitting. That's when the yoga princess comes up behind me, ponytail through a Gap ball cap. She is holding some pack looking purse at her side like an AR-15 and a sweat shirt with the name of some elite Ivy League college. This is Alaska lady and most of those items no one cares about here. Her purchase; a bottle of water that is three times the price of any other water because it's supposedly from far away. There are various organic vegetables, tofu, and a few almonds. She looks at my stuff, and then back at her stuff . . . squints her eyes and reaches for the little plastic bar. BOOM! The bar comes down with a loud whack! It's not so much out of convenience for the cashier as it is a judgment. No way is that stuff to be mistaken for something I would buy.

She reaches over to the rack of magazines and starts thumbing through a People. I open up my PC World. I look up just long enough to give her a hint of condescension from the corner of my eye. One of us is getting junk food for the body; the other is getting junk food for the mind.

I think that's how a lot of people view the idea of a border fence with Mexico. It's a giant plastic bar that people in the Midwest can slam down and say, "Don't mix our Hamburger Helper with their taco shells!"

Bush wanted to put 6,000 National Guards’ men on the border with Mexico. Here's the thing; Mexican immigrants are signing up in record numbers for the military. One of the reasons is, after a few years of service, they get citizenship. So let's review now. Mexicans who are in the National Guard to expedite their citizenship status will be protecting Americans from Mexicans who are coming here illegally by sneaking across land we stole from the Indians to take jobs for slave wages that many people would not do.

We are outsourcing our righteous indignation.

Maybe there shouldn't be a conveyor belt to America like in the grocery store, but maybe we also should be aware that without people entering America looking for a better life, most of those fruits and vegetables would cost us a lot more than what they do now. And our Alaskan prices are 30% more than Outside.

Boom!

The bar comes up?

Ice

* I got into a little of a rant here towards the end but after being at the hospital and wanting to write something quickly before I go to sleep it flowed and went into a direction I did not intend when I started. No apologizes but an explanation.