As we got to the checkout, I carefully checked each item as it went through. Two cartons of juice for a work event rang up at 26,500 instead of the 14,500 I'd thought they were. Another two also rang up wrong, this time the mango flavour was registering as Thyme Z 360. It made no sense. I paid the cashier and told my husband to wait while I ran back into the store to check the prices. They'd been wrong before, so I wanted to double-check.
When I neared the shelves, my eyes scanned the lines and instantly I knew my mistake. I had read the price correctly but not the brand. 8 rows of shelves were fully stocked with Maccaw juices of different flavours while each sticker underneath displayed an Uno brand with corresponding price. I'd failed to double-check the cartons with the price checker and now I would either have to return the cartons or have less cash to buy other items for the work event.
I turned and saw two young men in store shirts. They had been there earlier stocking the shelves when I'd grabbed the cartons of juice. You need to change all these stickers, I informed them. They all say Uno but this is Maccaw juice. They looked at me as if I had grown a third head. Sighing inwardly at the inability of the store employees to do anything useful, I grabbed 4 cartons of the cheaper juice and headed back to the checkout.
After my purchase, I dug out the expensive cartons and hurried to the customer service. You need to change the prices on your shelves. I just wasted a lot of money because the prices were wrong, words spilled out, as the two ladies stared at me. I want to return these juices. They rang up the return, handed me my cash, and then stared at me again until finally a bell registered. Do you want your receipt back? I nodded and they circled something on the receipt, then handed it back to me. I looked at the receipt. They had circled the 4 juice cartons I had kept; not the ones I had returned.
Infuriated at the ineptitude of everyone overall, I marched back over to my patiently waiting husband. Let's get out of here, I said. We went to the car, unloaded our purchases, and drove home.
Two days later, I woke up to a perfect spring day. I pulled on my exercise tennies, downloaded the latest podcast of BBC Global News, grabbed my house key, and off I went. After an hour of vigorous walking, I washed my hair and prepared a tasty shanklish breakfast replete with fresh veggie tray and briny olives for a delightful meal on the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was a most marvelous start to the day.
Until a couple of hours later, I found myself in my room, door closed, recording an audio as tears emptied themselves into my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I can't do this anymore, I said, as I recounted the events of the past couple of days. I'd reached my breaking point and I. Just. Couldn't. Manage. Any. More.
Except I had to. Because I didn't have a choice.
It was more than apples, tomatoes or cartons of juice. It was the constant wearing down that had been going for the past 31 months with no end in sight. The anxiety that made me jump each time the power switched between city and generator, plunging us into darkness for a minute or more. The stench of burning garbage that mingled with raw sewage and factory waste so freely littering the air. Trying to make a budget that could keep up with the racing prices, only to throw it all to the wind the next month as gas, bread, and seeds jumped, yet again. Gas had passed 500,000 for 20 liters. It had been 23,000 before this whole fiasco had started.
I lived by charts, calculating over and over how much we could spend on groceries this week, how much we could save for the next car repairs that would undoubtedly come along, and worrying whether we would have to shell out some of our hard-earned dollars because the exchange rate would have soared past hyperinflation into ultrahyperinflation, if there even was such a thing. The Telegram group I'd joined to keep informed on which latest catastrophe loomed predicted the rate would increase 100fold. I was caught in a tug-of-war between the reality of maddening insanity where nothing made sense and a group of calmly chanting Christians whose mantra Just trust God did nothing to calm my churning insides.
A favourite saying of the conservatives goes, "God never leads His children otherwise than they would choose to be led, if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of the purpose which they are fulfilling as co-workers with Him." (The Saving Providences of God, March 5) It's not true. I never chose the path my feet were set on before I could learn to walk. Packed up like one of the many suitcases our family trailed around the world, I moved hither and yon without a voice. Without a choice.
I wanted to go to a mainstream university but we didn't have the money. I wanted to get married and settle down with a family when I was in my 20s. Have the whole white-picket fence, one car, a golden retriever, husband with a 9-to-5 job, two kids, and some semblance of security. Instead, here I was, in my 40s, still living someone else's life and following someone else's path. Not mine.
Some days my eyes trace the contrails in the sky of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, wistfully longing to be sitting inside it as it leaves this country far, far behind. Other days, I don't even look to the skies as I try to hold my mind together just long enough to get through another day. Accusing voices tell me to be thankful for what I have, after all, I'm not suffering like those who have to dig through garbage. The louder the voices, the deeper I retreat into myself.
Until one day, I say out loud, I can't do this anymore. And in that moment I know.
I don't have to.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Share a thought or two. . .