Yes! There exists a backlog of diatribes!
I know that makes your Monday.
To set the stage as it were, I was at Wal-Mart. In the checkout line, to be specific. I was second in a two-customer queue.
The young female ahead of me had no more than ten items in her cart so I was optimistic in hopes of a speedy transaction.
Said lady was clearly what in politically-correct parlance is now known as a Latina.
Read: She was Mexican.
Which is fine. I have nothing against Mexican people. Well, I have a few things against some of them. If that bothers you right out of the gate, please remember you click out the same way you clicked in.
Hasta luego!
However if you are curious as to what I have against select numbers of Mexican people, keep reading. You know I'll be unfailingly candid if not unnecessarily brief.
Included in the front-seat part of the Mexican lady's rolling canasta was a toddler of the male persuasion. Cute little guy. My remarkable powers of perception informed me he was her son.
The mother spoke incessantly -- albeit softy -- to the muchachito in Spanish. In fact, judging merely from what I heard during the ocho-or-so minutes I was in her presence, the woman had little or no command of English.
Bear with me here and hang on tight as I jump to the conclusion that the lady most likely does not have a job and, even if she does, is not paying income tax like, say, me.
And since we've gone that far, I'm going to come right out and say it: I profiled her on the spot as an illegal alien. Stay with me now. Fasten your sombrero.
If she is married (there was no wedding ring), I'll bet you one of my pirate posters (not my newest, though … not the one from On Stranger Tides, don't touch that one) that the father of her child -- even if he is in the picture, and if he is her husband, and if he is in fact employed -- is also an illegal alien and also neglects to pay Uncle Sam his unfair share.
Before you drop your chalupa let me point out that I am not a bigoted racist. Far from it. After all I own a Chihuahua.
(Mexicanine should be a word, don't you think? Let's make it a word.)
I believe any foreign-born person who qualifies per our immigration laws to enter this country legally has the right to save up their pesos -- or yen or rubles or francs or rupees or zloty or dinar or shekels or shillings or what have you -- and emigrate to the United States of America.
Once here, without giving any hierba time to grow under their feet, they should apply for citizenship through proper channels, obtain a work permit, get a job, begin learning English, memorize every syllable of the Star Spangled Banner and the Pledge of Allegiance, practice singing and reciting both with great zeal, take a nighttime civics class, absorb some important dates and events in our history, and generally figure out the lay of the land to which they aspire to belong permanently, with all the considerable rights and privileges appertaining thereto.
Everything all law-abiding, above-board, copacetic, according to Hoyle, entered into soberly and with appropriate humility and gratitude that what is still the most honor-worthy country that ever has or ever will exist on planet Earth, would open its golden door to you.
But back to the Mexican lady in question. To quote John Adams: Facts are stubborn things.
And the fact is, employed or unemployed, married or single, legal or illegal -- regardless of whether I'm correct as touching all or part of the above -- this woman is on welfare.
How do I know?
Uhm, let's see. I watched as she paid for her groceries with WIC and food stamps.
That was my tipoff. Although in all fairness I must point out that I'm pretty swift on the uptake, especially on days that end in y.
Because it took the Wal-Mart cashier longer to make that transaction than it would if she'd been handed, say, cash or a check or plastic, I had time to study the items the Mexican lady had placed on the conveyor belt.
And study I unabashedly and unapologetically did.
After all, I was helping to pay for them so I wondered what we were getting.
That's when I saw it.
Like most people when they go to the store, the Mexican lady had grabbed some milk.
Now, when you approach the tall glass-doored cases in the back of the store, there are a plethora of dairy choices.
Rather a staggering range, truth be told.
So I keep it simple. Because I do not wish to pay a penny more for milk -- or anything else -- than I have to, on account of TG and I work hard for every dollar we earn, I always pick up the cheapest milk available.
Which is without exception the store brand. In this case, hovering around three dollars and thirty cents a gallon, give or take.
But it wasn't Great Value milk I saw on the conveyor belt with the rest of the Mexican lady's groceries.
It was Coburg milk.
Which costs fully twice what generic GV leche goes for.
Coburg milk is the priciest on any shelf in any store in the State of South Carolina.
And the Mexican lady hadn't even seen fit to purchase a whole gallon; she'd reached for the sixty-four-ounce size.
Which costs even more per ounce than the gallon size. I checked.
So let me get this straight: I go to the store with money to spend that I earned and I buy the least expensive milk available.
(By the way, you don't have to point out that I'm free to buy the Coburg milk. And that under capitalism, Coburg is free to demand whatever the market will bear. I know that! Don't think I don't. But something in me rebels at the thought of paying nearly six dollars for a gallon of milk.)
(After all are Coburg cows issuing the moo juice through gold-plated udders? Is cerebral reading of existential philosophy or Shakespearean sonnets piped into their milking stalls on the theory that it causes them to give more valuable milk? Do Coburg cows feed on grain and nectar of the dairy gods? What justifies the champagne prices?)
Mexican lady, illegal alien, unemployed, on welfare, goes to the store and buys the most expensive milk available.
And "pays" with government-issued (read: taxpayer-funded) food stamps and WIC.
On my next trip to Wal-Mart I made it a point to eyeball the little curvy shelf edge that holds the price stickers and related informational signage beneath the milk choices.
Under the Great Value milk? The once-red-and-white WIC sticker is old, gouged, blistering, wrinkled, defaced, and faded nearly as white as the milk itself.
Under the Coburg dairy products? The WIC stickers are brand-new and vibrant red. If you're packing WIC coupons I imagine the Coburg dairy delights cry out to you in delicious creamy voices, beckon to you with cool milky hands: Pick us! Pick us!
And why wouldn't you, if you didn't have to part with the outrageous sticker price offered to those of us who are actually paying the freight?
Just so you know, that wasn't the only thing in the Mexican lady's food order that caught my eye and set me off.
For the pint-sized heir she was buying a carton of individually-bottled Dan-O-Nino kiddie drinks.
OK I really, really do know this is technically none of my business and borders (pun intended) on the tedious but honestly, whatever happened to having a container of Hershey's chocolate syrup on hand to squirt into your child's milk if they wanted it a different color?
When I was a kid that's how we got by. And were glad to get it.
If you're accepting welfare should you really be buying high-priced, overly-processed, sticky-sweet, gimmicky beverages your kid doesn't need, just for the sake of convenience or indulgence?
I hear you. Taking it down a peg. Inhaling deeply and counting slowly.
Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve ...