(The following post was originally published as a Facebook note on February 2, 2009)
Years ago, I heard a story (or maybe an urban legend?) about a wacked out fringe woman who was robbing a convenience store somewhere in the East Village; apparently she was taking items off the shelves and putting them under her shirt. The store owner saw what she was doing, and grabbed her by the arm as she was about to slip out the door - which caused a can of ham that she had taken to fall to the floor.
She immediately yelled "HELP! He's throwing groceries at me!' and caused such a ruckus that the owner looked like the one who was the aggressor, picking on a poor fringe woman. The other customers actually started yelling at him - as though he had done something wrong. And I'm sure that by the end of the episode, he might have thought so as well...I know I would have...
In the end of course - nobody won. The woman might have gotten away with stealing - but she also was forced to leave the ham behind, and go hungry (or maybe steal from another store - how inconvenient). And the store owner was subject to public ridicule or at least in the middle of an annoying disturbance, however brief it might have been .
Myth or legend or not - all of this resonates not only in matters involving convenience stores but in life in general - whether one is stealing a ham for survival or trying to get one's ham back. Someone hurts you - you hurt them to protect yourself - and no one wins...and the heart is just like a wheel "when you bend it; you can't mend it."
Unless maybe it's a movie on the Hallmark Channel - then at the end - everybody says "I love you" and even the good guys win -
and everybody gets a ham -
and they all live happily ever after...
(I'm logging off now, to make grilled cheese...)
Comments