I dropped by Sam's today to pick up some items that Susan missed when she went yesterday (and I managed to forget two items today myself!) and it struck me as was rolling my cart out of the store that the two female "gatekeepers"--one greeting people as they came the store and other checking the sales slips against the contents of carts as people were leaving--it struck me to ask myself what the hell these two old ladies were doing here working on a Sunday. Neither of these ladies was a day younger than 75, and the one greeting looked like she might have weighed all of maybe 80 pounds.
It struck me that surely it is a crime against the very humanity of these old ladies that they are forced to stand on their feet--for who knows how long?--to earn the pittance minimum wage that Sam Walton's corporation pays them. And I thought to myself: these old ladies are here and not home with their families for only one reason. They have to be there. They have to work. And then I thought to myself: this very idea is outrageous. We should be taking care of people like this. Isn't it a human right, a right in basic decency, that people in their old age and doubtless infirm in one way or another, should not have to labor so hard for their evening bowl of soup? What a cruel country this is.
2 comments:
god, i wish i could argue with you. it's horrible, in the land of the free and the home of the brave.....
I know. Whatever is to become of us for these crimes is not good.
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