Monday December 5th I went to HEB (a local, TX chain grocery store) for an errand. I had time to kill and walked around. I enjoy doing that at HEB. There's a well rounded slice of life that shops there: rich & poor, black, white, Hispanic, young & old, etc.
This particular day I noticed the large amount of poor people shopping. Boom. It hit me...the date. Social security and disability checks come through on the 3rd of every month. Since the 3rd fell on a Saturday, they probably got paid Monday the 5th...
Two women caught my attention. Both had "single mom" written all over them. They were together with their carts filled with 5 kids. Probably only had one working car between them, so they car pooled to get groceries. One woman barely looked 18. The other, probably 25. She had a black eye, I swear. Probably boyfriend or husband's doing.
The poverty class generally follow a monthly cycle (I wanted to title this "poverty's monthly cycle", but PMS sounded better). The cycle goes like this:
- 1st-3rd..get paid, buy groceries, pay bills
- next week or two...all is well, maybe
- last week...out of money. Visit church assistance and social services
In the old izzy days, the volume of people tripled during the last week of the month.
I love going to HEB around the first of the month. You get to see poor people feeling dignified, buying groceries like everyone else.
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2 comments:
B,
Thank you for your work with the poor. Reading this post and the last one regarding Obi Wan just make me very thankful for you man. I've actually been meaning to drop in on a local assisted living home here in Beverly, just to see if an elderly fellow could use a friend. Your post reminds that i need to move forwward with this.
thanks for participating in, and helping to bring life to the kingdom, friend.
James...big thanks for the encouragement. I really need that these days.
...and don't think the things you guys do in the Boston area go unappreciated down here...
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