Another beautiful day in America and I find myself at work listening to a woman explain why one of the trees in our parking lot is dying.
"It needs water. Lots more water," she says to me, pointing to the tree from inside the store.
"It gets lots of water," I return. "There are two sprinklers dedicated to that particular tree."
"Well, it needs more."
"We're kind of in a water restriction here, ma'am," I tell her. "I can't just hose 'er down whenever the mood strikes me."
She turns to me and gives me the once-over, pretty much the same look I get from hundreds of customers at the pharmacy on a daily basis. "No one likes a smart-alec."
"Of course not," I reply. "I was just making a point."
"You should be watering that poor thing," she says, turning back to the tree. "It looks dead."
"It is alive, though," I say. "It's a pretty big tree, it'll be all right." It is actually a giant tree, a great oak that sits smack dab in the middle of the parking lot. We built the store around it.
"Big things die, too," she says.
"I know," I agree. "The Dodo bird was huge, but died. Too big to fly, I guess."
She gives me another look.
"Ma'am," I continue, moving away from her. "If there's nothing else?"
I really did have other things to do than discuss this tree with this woman. She seemed nice enough, but . . . geez, come on. How many customers would complain about a tree in the parking lot?
"Actually, there is something else."
"Yes?"
"When are you going to do away with your sign?" She looked at me as though I just didn't get it. In fact, I didn't get it, didn't have a clue.
"Sign?"
"Yes!" she hissed. "That big thing on the side of the building. Uses too much electricity."
"Right," I said, moving another step away. "Well, I don't think we can do anything about that, ma'am. I mean, how would people know who we are?"
"Too much electricity," she repeated.
"We only turn it on at night," I offered helpfully. "So we're really not -"
"The planet's dying, and it's because of people like you." She looked right at me as if when I wasn't at work I was burning holes in the ozone, melting glaciers and killing polar bears.
"People like me?" I asked sheepishly. "Really, ma'am, I don't think -"
"No, you don't think. You don't even care."
"Actually, I do care, ma'am. I just don't understand how I can help you today."
"Turn off your electricity."
"The sign is off, ma'am."
"No, I mean for the whole store." She was serious, too.
"Um . . . I can't do that."
"You can't? Or you won't?" She gave me another look. "Don't you know about global warming?"
"Sure," I said. "Warming, Cooling, Rotating . . . I've heard of all of them."
Another look.
"Seriously, ma'am, there is nothing I can do to help you with this." She looked at me for a moment, shook her head, then walked out of the store. As she was leaving I heard this:
"Some people . . ."
I watched her walk to her car (yes, she had a car - a beat-up old Toyota), get in, then drive across the street to the supermarket. I can only imagine her conversation with the manager there. Actually, I don't have to imagine it: I just had it.
Watching her drive across the street, I thought how glad I am to be in America. How glad I am to be here on planet Earth. My only wish is that some of the customers I come in contact with also resided here.
|
tweet this!
