I went to the grocery store last night and filled my cart with a lot of stuff that looks like food but really isn’t. What can I say? I like junk and always have.
However, just my luck, as I was wheeling down one aisle, I ran into my doctor who looked into my cart, pointed to one of my items and said, “That stuff will kill ya.”
All I could think to reply was, “I know.”
I’m not going to tell you any specifics about the stuff that is going to kill me in case you leave a comment telling me that stuff is going to kill me. All I will say is it is legal and I like it.
I have a long history of ingesting things that are going to kill me and I am certain they someday will but as I just turned 72 last week, I can only conclude that these things seem to be taking their time.
In any case, after pronouncing my death sentence, my doctor quickly wandered off leaving me with one big question.
“That’s odd,” I thought. Although the person who judged my purchases spoke with authority and medical knowledge like my doctor might, I realized that it wasn’t her at all. For one thing, she is shorter than the man who commented on my groceries and her hair is a lot darker than his.
And not to put down other doctors I have had over my lifetime, but she is by far my favourite one. She is crackerjack smart and has guided me through a few steps that have increased my general health remarkably over the past couple of years.
But mostly, I like her because she never scolds me. I am not sure where I picked up this aversion to being scolded, but I don’t react well to it at all. One doctor I used to see spent every one of our short visits detailing all the things I was doing wrong till I felt like diving headfirst off the roof of the medical centre when my appointments ended.
This experience in the grocery store has left me a bit shaken. A complete stranger looks into my shopping cart and says in no uncertain terms that I am a fool for buying a certain deadly item that I apparently intend to allow into my body when I get home. I am not a saint, but it wouldn’t occur to me to check out a stranger’s cart and say, “You know, that soup will give you the runs” even if I know from experience that it will. Or, “Oh my God. Eat that hard candy and say goodbye to your teeth.”
I am worried about the guy who gave me the thumbs down on the stuff I was buying. I wish I had had the good sense to tell him that commenting like that on a man’s groceries, especially if he did it to the wrong man, could lead to his early death.
I don’t know if he’ll make it to 72, carrying on like that.
©2023 Jim Hagarty
