Silent Sneeze

Yesterday, I went to Trader Joe's as it opened to pick up some groceries. Trader Joe's is a grocery story that's like a smaller version of Whole Food's except it's actually affordable and its CEO isn't a merciless plutocrat. They also have great frozen meals that are perfectly suited for two-person homes. Though the quality of its products should appeal to all people, TJ's clientele mostly consists of lefty types, seemingly polite and open-minded by way of their politics, though their awareness of the world immediately around them may not be quite equal to their social awareness.

I arrived ten minutes early and pulled out my blackberry to check some news. It's a lousy habit and it makes me look like one of those space cadet teens swallowed whole in their technology matrixes, but it's something I do. Nearby, some hippie guy was having a conversation with a younger gentleman in his early twenties about renewable energy. The hippie made a gesture towards my car, one of the only ones in the parking lot and remarked on how in 30 years or so those things would be extinct. As if taking his cues for Zerzan, he didn't even mention the word "car" or "automobile", as if the very term offended him to the core. Moments later, he noticed as I did that his son was about to run into the road. Watch out there, hippie guy, cars aren't extinct yet!

I could tell the hippie held the same kind of antipathy toward me. I was dressed in a nice tucked in polo shirt and khakis, ready for work and absorbed in my cell phone. I drove that car to the grocery, not only because it was cheaper and far more convenient than Philadelphia's awful public transit system, and not only because it seemed more reasonable for carrying frozen groceries back to my home which wasn't within walking distance to the only affordable natural food market in the city, but because the rotten job market had forced me to work some 30 minutes outside of the city. You see, I had to make it to work on time or they might think that I was expendable at my place of business, where the employees had just incurred a 10% across the board salary cut. I was the enemy, alright. The working man.

A small crowd started to gather as opening time drew near. The presentation of new bodies likely introduced new pathogens into the environment and, possibly as a result, I sneezed. I must admit that I was a bit dumbfounded when the sneeze was followed by a long period of silence. Momentarily insulted by my peers, I soon looked back down at the day's headlines. Then, I felt the next sneeze coming up. They're sure to say something this time, I thought. It's early morning and perhaps the first one just caught them off guard. Sometimes, that will happen to me. I'll miss the opportunity to say "Bless you" by suspending too long a gap between the sneeze and my response time. To avoid embarrassment, I'll simply say nothing instead, but feel awkward and slightly perturbed.

Now, they were ready for it. Those lefty liberals with all that goodwill supposedly oozing out of their pockets. The Zerzanian hippie who was set to save the planet by enacting a final solution on automobiles. Here was their chance to redeem themselves with the smallest possible tiding they could grant.

"Bless You", or "God Bless You", which an agnostic like me doesn't say but still appreciates, is more than just an Emily Post gesture of proper manners. It's an incantation and an acknowledgement. It's well-wishing as a selfish act. Saying "Bless You" is a hex on your disease, an amelioration by way of a social support placebo. You say it not only because you care about your fellow man, but because you know that his disease could spread an afflict you. Despite all our attempts to set barriers between one another, we are still biologically dependent on one another. The survival of the species depends on our perpetual collective interest in the wellness of others. A society that does not care, looks away, or stands in silence is a society that is sick sick sick.

They ignored me again. I wanted to go inside and phlegm all over the organic produce. I wanted to wipe my sleeves on their shopping carts, to lick their granola, to teabag their teabags, but it'd be unreasonable to mistake a small gesture like this for a lack of caring. But caring is not only a convenience, it's also work. It's a full time job. Any of the doctors and nurses I work with will tell you how hard it is to keep treating the same assholes who never listen to you, are never compliant with their medications, and consecutively promote their own self-destruction, but they continue to treat these awful people. Real health care doesn't care who you are or what you did. It treats you same whether you just shot a cop or saved a baby from a burning building, whether you can afford to pay your bills or whether you don't have a dime to your name. It's the most indiscriminate, even Christlike, of all professions.