The Old Bagging Lady
Feb 24th, 2009 | 5 responses
I used to live in a large apartment complex. I wasn’t friendly with a lot of the other tenants but easily recognized most of them by sight. The other day I saw one them again. An old woman, almost certainly well past seventy, in the supermarket. She was bagging my groceries.
The recognition gave me an uncomfortable feeling, but it was clear that it made her feel much, much worse because she also recognized me. We had been a kind of peers as joint tenants in that apartment complex. In the market we were something very different.
It wasn’t that she was working for me here. Lots of people in the same community do various jobs for one another. It was the fact that she had obviously and undeniably been reduced to doing something that kids used to do for minimum wage during a summer vacation to get some work experience, and she was reduced to doing it in order to survive.
She hurried my bag filling order. The frozen stuff was mixed in with the canned goods which wasn’t right, and the fruit was on the bottom of the bags in a way that might get it crushed. It was a rush job because she was desperate to move on to the next checkout counter, the one where the groceries of a total stranger waited. For my part I struck up a conversation with the women at the cash register so I didn’t have to look at my bagger.
The old bagging lady reminded me of my mother. On the way home I wondered how she would feel if one of her own neighborhood acquaintances came upon her bagging in a grocery store. It was a thought I didn’t wish to dwell upon.
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5 Responses to “The Old Bagging Lady”
I suspect that this is more of a big city problem, being embarrassed to be seen in a menial job. In a small town, where everyone has some kind of relationship with everyone else, this would simply be another encounter with a neighbor. People take jobs for many reasons – I suspect that your neighbor needed the money but could not exceed the SS limits – but this should not interfere with the relationship. I
n a small town everyone would already know the circumstances and would have an opinion made well before the encounter (which would be inevitable) while in a large city it becomes an embarrassment for all because there really is no relationship other than knowing on sight.
Personally I think we contribute to a person's shame by acting as though we feel they're doing something undignified when there's really no reason to feel that way. Taking a job of whatever form fulfills a need of society while contributing to one's own welfare. Nothing to be ashamed of, so why not look her in the eye and thank her?
I think it's sick that people who have put in a full lifetime of work have to drag aching, often ill and failing bodies to put in a full shift that would tire a younger person on their feet all day…just in order to make enough to eat and get by on. I know a lot of older people who are working because of health care premiums (ah, the irony…working to get sicker and older until they die to pay for something that should be their right to have) or other expenses that are too high to bear. When inflation strikes…it's only going to get worse..
Those who have put in a full life shouldn't HAVE to work…and that's what this article is about…not those old people who choose to work, but instead those that MUST in order to just get by…and their numbers are on the rise..
She's working in a grocery store, what's the big deal? Maybe you're reading things into her behavior that aren't there. There's nothing demeaning about what she's doing.
Can understand your discomfort. . .and also hers. . .we live in a strange world where all too often “have and have not” are surface wrappings of who people really are. . .
Go back to the store and reach a little deeper, maybe take her for a cup of coffee and let her know you see her. . .and let her know who you really are. . .
Please update us. . .
As always
Dear Abby(ish)