Humanity: A Source of Light

Sigh. It's always a disappointment returning to civilization after a few days in the deep woods. But there are chores to do, home repairs to make, cars to fix, clothes to wash.

Fresh from the forest with a serene afterglow, I said farewell to my afternoon slack and headed for the hardware store to buy kitchen cabinet parts. As I stood in line behind a rather large, sullen female customer I couldn't help but overhear the transaction, made even more obvious by the customer's boisterous and blunt delivery:

[CLERK] "...and what else?"

[CUSTOMER] "I also have a door back in lumber."

[CLERK] "I'll have to get someone back there to help you bring it up to the counter."

[CUSTOMER] "YOU bring it up here. If you can't make it easy and
convenient for me, then YOU DON'T DESERVE MY MONEY...."

Now, I'm for legendary customer service as much as the next person, but I'm certainly not for asking the solitary service person to inconvenience a line of waiting people for the sake of one fat lazy toad. Yep. At first glance this was an old, slovenly battle-ax; legs like stumps, skin tone like dirty leather, two hundred pounds overweight, puffy pre-diabetic slob with an attitude. I thought, "God, that's not going to happen to me when I get THAT old." Then I took another look. She was probably ten years younger than me.

The clerk profusely apologized while the customer continued to piss and moan under her breath about the kind of service she deserved. She didn't buy the door. I completed my transaction after she left and made it to my car at the end of the parking lot before she waddled her fat ass half-way across the lot to her aging BMW sedan.

It's not an age thing, even if I sound a bit age discriminatory. I know women in their 50's and 60's who are radiant. Their skin tone may be fading, their hair greying, their bodies not as lithe and supple as a younger gal. But the spark of humanity and the glow of concern for those around them make them sexy and beautiful beyond description. But I digress.

In a solo survival situation there would be no one to gather her materials for her, no one to build her a fire, no one to feed her. Actually she's got the advantage on me with the food situation as she could probably winter over on her stored fat without leaving her shelter. But she would shit herself to death after drinking unpurified water before I resorted to eating acorns.

Solo survival is a tough path. As a species we have learned to work together in groups to optimize our survival. We all bring special skills. But it takes a selfless attitude, not a "me first" approach. Some time in her life this endomorphic bag of flatulence was probably a sweet young girl looking at the world with hope and anticipation. But something derailed that path, probably relatives and role models with the same sour-mouthed selfish attitude. Poor little girl. I imagine it would take months at the Esalen Institute, dozens of 500 microgram hits of L.S.D. and a few years of community service projects before that little girl could awaken. But of course, this will never happen.

Mrs. Battle-ax would still be a source of light to our survival community. After the tribe banished her to freeze in the snow, her body could be retrieved and the fat rendered. Oil to light our shelter.

Humanity: Even the worst of us are potentially a source of light.