March 2019 – ThinkB4its2Late

Has anyone else noticed that smaller, family owned neighborhood grocery stores have been replaced by drug stores? Now, instead of going in to buy fresh vegetables, fruits, meat and poultry, the makings of a healthy meal, we have drug stores mainly selling prescription drugs. In our area we have an ad currently airing on broadcast TV (and maybe cable as well) about a guy who can only dream about eating tacos unless he takes a prescription pill every day. I guess that’s the answer to all of our problems, take a pill. It seems like common sense that if your body is telling you not to the eat tacos, you listen. Not anymore. Go to the doctor and get a prescription for heartburn, and while you’re there, you can get prescriptions for all kinds of things. Things that would’ve never even been mentioned within hearing of anyone who’s not been married for a while, now are advertised for even the kids to hear. Every single one of them has precautions at the end, and some of them quite serious. I always wonder, do people actually take these drugs after hearing these ads? ‘Ask your doctor about….’ Very strange. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around, the doctor tells you what drugs will help you, not the drug companies drumming up business for their products.

I miss those corner grocery stores. One that closed long ago was run by a Sicilian family. It was small, you could go from one end to the other in a couple of minutes, and there weren’t ten thousand items to choose from. You could walk down, pick up whatever looked good for dinner, go home, cook and have a good meal within an hour. Now it’s a drive and the stores are huge, the lines are long, it’s an endeavor. But we seem to prefer our drugs over taking care of ourselves. No exercise, stress, fast food and pills are the order of the day.

My work requires me to travel from city to city and work in a variety of businesses. Recently while at a grocery store I overheard several of the employees talking. One of them, a manager, had been in the ladies room and was telling the others that as she leaned over her store keys fell into the toilet. Whoosh!, off they went down to the sewer because the toilet flushes based on motion sensors, or light, not sure which. The keys to the store were gone. Not even a chance to get something to fish them out and sanitize them.

As mentioned above, I don’t have a regular office so using public facilities is necessary and what I am finding is a sad state of affairs in the public restrooms of America. They are not clean folks. I know what a clean bathroom looks and smells like, and even though they have automatic flush and battery operated towel dispensers, air-dryers for hands and motion detection faucets I just don’t get the feeling that I am in a place that’s clean. You know clean. There’s no layer of anything between you and the surface. The floors are not slippery. Mirrors are not murky or spotted, hard surfaces shine. The air smells, if it smells at all, fresh. There’s no mold. All of those things, any of them, is a rarity. Once in a while I come across a really clean bathroom and if possible I make it a point to compliment. There’s a rest area somewhere along my way that is always spotless. Last time I was there a cleaning lady was shining the towel dispenser while I washed my hands. I thanked her for a clean facility and told her how much I love a clean bathroom. She smiled and said she did too. It showed.

I suspect that this decline of cleanliness shows a shift in our priorities. A few decades ago we paid more attention to things like cleanliness and order. The public would not tolerate anything less. Nowadays we rely on automated systems to manage our chores. Or maybe we just think we can go and get a shot if we get sick. But if we were to ever experience the pandemic that all the experts say is coming I’ll just bet that the public restroom is where it’s going to get its start.

ThinkB4its2Late

Use it or lose it

ThinkB4its2Late

Month: March 2019