posted September 19, 2007 08:25 PM         

The last thing I did was stop at a place that sells Mexican food cheap. I've never eaten there before, and I doubt I will again. The bathroom was dirty and they didn't offer many choices. Still, you get what you pay for and all...

Understand, money is more than just money to me. More than a "system of currency" it represents what I did to get that money. It represents the time I spent making candles or altering clothes or the many other things I do. It represents my life. This is what I have to show for my time on this Earth at so-and-so time. It's one reason I tend to take a lot of taxation personally: I perceive it as slave labor, I'm being forced to pay--ie, surrender my life and labor--for things I don't believe in, including the murder and misery of innocent people in the USA and abroad that don't deserve it (including of myself). Oh, sure, some good comes out of it, too, but not only do I see far more good coming out of a voluntary system, but as it is now, more harm and foul is done than good.

My point isn't to debate any of this, just to explain how I see money, and also how I see what I buy with it. Money isn't just colored pieces of paper that work magic, they're a manifestation of what I do and how I live my life. Every second is of value to me, even if I seemingly waste them at times.

Anyway, I was hungry, I thought I'd save a few dollars and try someplace new that I might want to eat at again. As it is, I doubt I ever will, partly for the reasons already listed. I ate about half my order before I gave up on it. Normally, I take scraps home and eat them later, but I just didn't like the food, edible as it was. So, sitting out on the patio, I got up and left the plate there.

The reason is this: in this part of town, many homeless and hungry people (including kids) walk the sidewalks, and they'll grab plates of food left alone. It beats dumpster diving, I'm sure. I guess maybe I still remember when I was homeless and hungry, too. And as long as SOMEONE got to eat it, I wouldn't feel that the food was wasted.

Even animals eating it are ok in my book. When I lived with my granny, one of my favorite things to do was to take the table scraps that were all put in a bucket out to the chickens and whatnot. (I wonder if the only reason I wasn't attacked by the rooster one night when I grabbed him by mistake in the dark is that he recognized me as the "food goddess.") Granny did that because she believed it was a sin to waste food, and it's something I picked up from her (and going hungry myself at times no doubt help drive that point home).

Anyway, I dumped the rest of the stuff off into the trash, other than the tray that I put in the appropriate place, and the drink which I wanted to dump the ice out of first. As I was going back into the eatery, I saw a man, another customer, pick up the plate I left behind and take it to the trash, too. I stopped, holding the door open, and said, "Wait, homeless people will get it!"

"Exactly," he said, as he dumped the food into the trash.

In my eyes, he'd dumped my crafts into the trash. I'd paid for that food with money I made from that. The plate of food was a manifestation of my time on this earth. And I see it as something of a sin to waste food. Granted, even seagulls or chickens can eat it (bugs and maggots don't count for me, yuck), and I'm fine with that, just so long as it's consumed by a life form, it's not really wasted. But his dumping the food in the trash so it wasn't good to anyone was like tearing up my money, or destroying my crafts.

I realized I didn't have much to stand on since I was leaving the food behind, but I still paid for it, and he threw it in the trash. But as I am the way that I am, I tried understanding why he did that, as it surprised me that he'd do that in the first place. "What did they ever do to you?" I asked.

Angrily, he said, "They take our jobs."

And then I recognized what HE was seeing. Whereas I was seeing that food as a manifestation of my labor and also that it couldn't be made to go to waste (as it had when he put it in the garbage), and I was seeing the homeless people who grab it as being of any race, gender, age and the like, he was seeing some illegal alien working subminimal wage grabbing the plate I left behind to get strong to steal another's day labor from him. No doubt, the grubby Mexican he visualized lived in some tent and scavenged whatever food he could, because no way he could afford sufficient food and shelter on what he'd make. (Interesting, too, that he'd be more angry at the Mexican illegals than the ones who hire them.)

I wondered if he was laid off, which might help explain why he was eating there like I was (it's cheap), despite the fact that the staff there really couldn't speak English (to get an order, I finally had to say "cuatro" and flash 4 fingers to get "order number 4"), and loudly spoke Spanish. Maybe he felt he was brought to the brink of ruin, and here he was eating cheap at a place that mocked him. 'Course, this is all just what went through my head, I didn't ask him about any of it. Whether I was right about why he was eating there and how it irked him or not, whether he was justified in feeling that way or not, the guy was angry and bitter, and I was still annoyed that he threw the food I left behind away. All I said was, "You could've at least given it to your dog," and left.

posted September 19, 2007 09:19 PM         

we are all equal and the same, as long as people want to separate us, we will never be
united.

posted September 20, 2007 08:09 AM         

quote:

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The reason is this: in this part of town, many homeless and hungry people (including kids) walk the sidewalks, and they'll grab plates of food left alone. It beats dumpster diving, I'm sure. I guess maybe I still remember when I was homeless and hungry, too. And as long as SOMEONE got to eat it, I wouldn't feel that the food was wasted.

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