A couple summers ago we spent a month in Asheville, N.C. After arriving to our Airbnb, I headed out to the nearby Whole Foods to stock up on groceries.
I had a decent grocery cart full by the end of my trip, and as the cashier finished ringing everything up, she asked without a trace of irony, “Will you need a bag?”
My eyes glanced over at the significant pile of groceries she had just scanned with a look that – if she caught that millisecond of honesty – said, “My gosh. How else is one going to get all of these out of here?!”
But then my eyes caught her eyes, and her eyes were midway through a millisecond of their own communication: “Who in God’s good, green earth comes into a Whole Foods in the heart of Asheville, NC without their own, reusable bags?!”
In the third millisecond her eyes glanced with sadness upon the once-trees-now-paper-bags behind her counter that remained necessary to feed the machine of me-first humanity - of which I was presently the full, incarnate truth.
Then, in the fourth millisecond she returned to me with a solemn, intense gaze. Though I could not muster the wherewithal to look directly back at her, I could tell she had no concern whatsoever about “the customer is always right” or any like sentiments. And for good reason. She rightly intuited that all of the customers in line behind me were holding the exact same gaze upon me.
Hester Prynne wore a Scarlet Letter in the Massachusetts Bay Colony; I rolled eight brown paper bags through the parking lot of a Whole Foods in the heart of Asheville, NC. I hurried across the lot to the trunk of our Subaru Outback where I loaded up and headed back to our Airbnb.
As soon I walked through the front door with the brown bags-in-tow, Michelle saw the issue. “Oh no. Don’t we have reusable bags?”
I didn’t respond. To her credit, she did not pile on more shame by pressing the issue. She knew.
And then she graciously offered a way forward. “Ok, I am going to take these brown bags to our trunk so we can use them as our reusable bags on the next grocery trip.”
Michelle put them in the trunk along with five or six other brown bags we had from my home. Needless to say, the trunk was now well-stocked with an abundance of bags that could become our steady, reusable options in Asheville. I did not think twice about how that abundance might appear to someone else until two day later when it was far too late to change anything.
I was back at Whole Foods to grab a few extra items. I parked the car, and then pressed the “open trunk” button.
Our Subaru’s trunk has one of those automatic doors that does not respond to any sort of muscling of the door open or close. With great ease, one need only press a small button, and the trunk will begin its slow, steady rise or descent.
The elongated time it took the door to open allowed me to reflect upon the pile of paper bags lying in the trunk.
Suddenly, I heard the low hum of an engine nearby.
“Oh no…”
You know how when there is a horrific wreck on the side of the highway and everybody slows their vehicle to look? Something in us cannot help but look, stare and murmur our ‘how awfuls’ in various degrees of disbelief and horror.
And so of course the woman and her young daughter in the car behind me slowed likewise to take in my trunkful of woodland carnage.
Instantly, I reached for trunk door and attempted with all of my strength to slam the shame backing into hiding.
The door absolutely, positively Would. Not. Budge.
Oh Subaru!
It’s like the therapist who meets with you a couple of times and lovingly guides you to build bridges within yourself and toward others in your life, but then in that third session you hit upon a raw, ugly, un-processed truth and just as you try to slam that mess shut, that kind therapist becomes absolutely, positively resolute without a single ounce of gracious budge: “Yeah. No, let’s hold this one open for awhile. Let it all out...”
How firm that door held. How exposed the truth.
I sighed. Fully confessed and defeated, I limply reached for the button. The door’s slow descent began. I watched until finally, mercifully, the door closed.
Been there done that! When Ron goes to the store today I will give him some reusable bags! Great writing as always!