I threw away a perfectly good steak: How race in America affects the price of food

"You look horrible. You need to go home, boy," the young checkout girl told the sacker.
"I went to Mexico and got a parasite," he said to my instant alarm because he was sacking groceries for the line I was in.
"You really need to go the hospital," the older lady purchasing groceries in front of me said.
"But I've already got $10,000 worth of hospital bills I haven't paid."
"Damn. He's got more in medical bills than I've got in college loans," the checkout girl said.

Then I projected onto the older lady shopper the type of bigotry I always project onto old white people: I imagined her inner shock at a black person being in college. No matter what part of the country I'm in, I always assume old white people are racists. Mainly because it's been my experience that when you're alone with old white people for any amount of time, they'll end up saying something crazy like, "And then there's the Chinks..."

The only reason I feel I have the authority to talk about this right now is that I watched CNN's "Black in America" over the weekend. I dozed off a few times, but I think I got the gist of it. Which is: There are a lot of black people in America. I mean, everywhere you turn. In fact, I heard that a black guy is running for president. I even looked in my closet and realized I had bought one of his campaign t-shirts. And I was getting something out of my trunk and saw a bumper sticker calling for his election on my car. Going through my CDs (I'm so 90s), I found an astounding number of soul, R&B, hip-hop and African discs. Then I did a little research into my social life and found that I have friends who are black. I even discovered evidence that I'd dated black women before!

I guess my point that I never got around to even trying to make (thanks, Jack Daniel) is, why in the fuck is John McCain polling close to Barack Obama? McCain is too old, makes a lot of mental gaffes, is not the independent thinker he was 8 years ago, lies about Obama, and, in my opinion, still wants to go back and fight Vietnam. Obama is young, intellectually curious (unlike some President Bushes I know), and would instantly upon being elected bring back some of our country's prestige around the world. So what could it be? What is it that would make a good number of people who are sick of Bush want to vote for McCain? I think the answer is up in one of the first paragraphs of what I wrote here. Something about parasites or something. Or Chinks, I guess.

Anyway, the sick kid, who was white, left work. I trashed my groceries as soon as I got home and began sterilizing my guts with whiskey.

The End.