Cousins and Garbage

one bag for glass, one for aluminum

Some days, I walk half a mile to the Git-and-Go for a six-pack of Goose Island’s Next Coast IPA and maybe a bag of caramel corn. My mom likes caramel corn, and my sister-in-law is collecting beer bottle caps, so everyone gets a little something. Today, here was the exchange with the cashier.

Cashier, a Black woman: Would you like a bag?

Me, a white guy: Yes, thanks, could I get two bags? 

She, unamused: You can have one bag.

Me: I’m going to put my stuff in this backpack*. I want to use the bags to pick up aluminum cans and glass bottles.

She, warmly: Oh, yes, you can have two bags. 

Me: Thanks. The last time I was in here, I was too embarrassed to ask for bags.

She: It’s all right.

Me: We’re all in this together.

She, giving me two bags: That’s right. Here you go. 

Me: I figure if all Black people are brothers and sisters, then you and I are cousins at least.

She: We’re all from Africa. We all have the same DNA.

Me, resisting the urge to show her photos of my beautiful biracial daughter and instead putting my fist up to the anti-COVID plexiglass: That’s right.

She, fist-bumping me through the plastic: Take care.

Me:  See you.

Is this the first time that I have connected with someone different from me across a gas-station counter? No. Am I a dork? Yes, and that’s why I treasure being a Unitarian-Universalist, a community in that embraces dorkiness. Don’t believe me? Just listen to us sing some Sunday, once the pandemic is over.

*If you work for Amazon, you might get ground up, but you might also get a rocking backpack.