Sean Reiser

After doing some house cleaning today I decided to take back some bottles that I had laying around the house. Up through the summer I was good about taking them back when I did my grocery shopping every week or so. Since the fall I've been a little distracted and have allowed them to get stacked up in the corner of my kitchen. Between juice and soda I had around 150 bottles that needed to go back in 3 large plastic bags. As I live in NYC and don't drive I load up my little push cart (the kind Grandmother's use everywhere) and head off the the 1/2 mile walk to the grocery.

As crazy as this sounds, at this point in the story, I was a little proud. I was cleaning out part of the apartment, getting some space back. i wasn't giving into my lazier side which wanted me to leave these bottles out on recycling day. And, on some level, I was declaring to the universe that I was open to receive what I was owed. This is money I was entitled to and I was claiming it. This taking the bottles back was a positive thing for me.

When I walk up to the store I generally say hello and make eye contact with folks as I go. Sometimes there's conversation, sometimes there isn't but there's almost always a smile. It makes the 10 min trek to the store pass by at a reasonable clip. This trip was nothing like that. Once I got a block or 2 away from my place, people wouldn't make eye contact with me. Actually let me rephrase that, they'd make eye contact with me, then their eyes would dart to the wagon filled with bottles and then they'd stare at the ground in front of them. I started to feel a knot in my stomach. That "I should feel ashamed of how I'm acting but I'm not sure why" feeling we all got in high school from time to time, Then I get it. These people think I'm poor or maybe homeless.

This somehow got me to thinking about how we treat those who are less fortunate. Generally speaking when I am approached on the street or the subway for money, I do my best to look them straight in the eye and say "I'm sorry, I can't. Have a good day" or "God Bless" or something similar. If I have food which I can spare I ask i they'd like it and gladly hand it over. If I have both money and time I'll offer to buy them a sandwich. I won't give money because I fear how it's going to be spent (drugs, etc), but if I can make this person less hungry, I will. The point is though, I will always engage the person, look them straight in the eye and talk to them. Because, as a person that is the least they deserve, common decency and respect.

So l ask, when did it become OK to treat folks less fortunate then you as a non-entity? More importantly, why do we? Many people reading this entry will have been at one point in life close to being homeless or hungry. Maybe through family or friends you were spared from that fate. And in the world we're in right now many folks reading are a layoff away from joining them.

I think that we're a little ashamed and a little scared. Ashamed that, as a society, we we allow people to live in conditions which are less then human and scared that real soon we're going to join them.