Metaphysical Arts Santa Cruz Notes: A Lesson from Larry David . . .
I arrived late to the Larry David scene, but now I am a rabid fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm . . . I recently experienced a horrible series of misunderstandings which had me relating to the plights of Mr. David. It all started when I was shopping for my elderly mother at Safeway a few weeks ago.
Many stores used to ask “paper or plastic” as a matter of course. I had often advised, “When you see an old hippie, you can bet it is going to be paper.”
I use the paper bags to recycle and I recycle everything I can get my hands on. It’s a hobby of sorts – makes me feel good to keep recyclable stuff out of the landfill.
I have been increasingly upset at the plastic blob in the Pacific ocean . . . it sickens me to think that we as a society are so wasteful and that we are impacting the Earth so negatively.
This brings me to the Safeway incident of a few weeks ago. I had been preoccupied and hadn’t noticed that the bag boy was bagging everything in plastic. This Safeway is in Los Gatos. Where I live, in Santa Cruz, there is a movement to ban plastic bags all-together, because they cannot be recycled and end up in the landfill. I caught the bag boy after a couple of bags and said I actually preferred paper. I didn’t mean for him to dump everything out and begin all over again, but that is what he did and he was not happy about it. I said, “It’s ok . . . just bag the stuff you haven’t gotten to yet in paper.” I was going to make the “old hippie” comment, but he wasn’t in the mood for frivolity so I skipped it. I mumbled something about the plastic blob in the ocean, then asked the cashier if they inquire if the customer wants paper or plastic and she said they don’t do that any longer – they just default to plastic. I wanted to tell her that in Santa Cruz it appears plastic will soon be banned, but she didn’t seem that interested in the subject. The bag boy was throwing things on the counter and just having a fit . . .it was surreal . . .
Fast forward to the next week. I am in line with my teenage grandson and he volunteers his Safeway card number, which distracts me from the bagging situation (I know: I MUST pay better attention) . . . the bagger is bagging in plastic, which is their wont . . . I say, “I wanted paper . . . ” we finish the transaction and I walk out of the store with everything bundled up in plastic. As soon as we depart the store, my grandson tells my daughter (who was in another line) that I was rude to the clerk (in retrospect, I did not properly chit-chat with the clerk because I was thinking about the first Safeway incident and now this one). This is when Larry David came to mind. I had just seen the Massage episode where he is accused of being rude for not doing a “Stop and Chat” with the restaurant owner when they passed each other on the street. I totally identified with Larry in this situation.
The moral of this story is that you never really know what is going on inside other people. They may be having entire scenarios playing out in their heads (and most likely do) that you have no inkling about.
