Before me in line at a suburban Super Wal-Mart was a woman, somewhere around 30 by my best guess, and her son, who I supposed might have been ten. In a nation where 2 out of 3 people are overweight, they were skinny. Their clothes were clean and in keeping with the unspoken dress code of suburbia, but showed signs of wear. Her sandals didn’t fit quite right. Her son’s hair was done neatly in an urban style, perhaps at home. I’d been dodging young people darting about the store with a sense of entitlement all through my shopping voyage — including the kids behind me loudly begging their parents for candy — so I was struck by his remarkably good behavior. He patiently put checked groceries into their cart while mom watched the display of scanned items like a hawk.
They had a small order. Food included four loaves of the cheapest house-brand bread available, a case of ramen, a family-sized package of house brand hot dogs, American cheese, and a small can of baby formula — the only name brand item on the conveyor belt. No fruits or vegetables of any sort. They also had a comb, store-brand maxi-pads, pencils, and a couple cheap children’s backpacks. There was no baby with them, so I had to assume there was somebody at home watching the baby and whoever was waiting for the second backpack. I found it curious that they were buying school supplies at the very end of September. Perhaps they were waiting for a clearance sale? She paid with a combination of cash and some sort of scan card before leaving.
In Closing: A few links on Obamacare, the impending government shutdown, and birth control pills (and reproductive rights in general); the media and graphs.