EATING MY WORDS

I hate eating my words.

Just today I said the words, "Lawrence isn't so bad," about the city I used to call home, the city run by a criminal mayor and his criminal thugs.  It's the city that thinks it's tough but would run screaming into New Hampshire if Philadelphia ever came calling.

Later the same day, I went grocery shopping in Lawrence (because that's where the Market Basket is, the grocery store where I can actually afford to shop).  Everything was fine until I got to the produce aisle.  I heard this horrible hacking sound, the sound of severe toddler croup, and I noticed a shaggy man with two children in one of those massive cart/multi-seat/doublewide grocery carriages.  They were parked in front of the fruits and vegetables, and the youngest one had its mouth wide open and was coughing sputum and snot all over everything nearby.  I made a mental note to avoid any food I knew they'd been near, when suddenly kid #2 started spewing germs everywhere, too.

That's when I noticed twitchy, unkempt, skuzzy-looking "dad" (or random adult pushing them) stuffing food into his many pockets.  He was wearing baggy pants and multiple shirts, and he parked in such a way that the kids hacked on the produce while he backed up to the loose Brach's candy display and started loading up every pocket he had available.  He even put some of the stuff into his crotch (I really hope he was wearing underwear - or that would give new meaning to gumBALLS).

At this point I was close to the shoplifter and his mucousy minions because I needed to get something out of the freezer case across from where they were situated.  I started to approach them to say that people had to pay for the candy he was stealing, and that it wasn't free just because it was loose with a scoop and bags… the same scoop and bags he should've been using to collect the candy.

But I hesitated.

Not only were the kids incredibly ill with green goop coming out of every facial orifice, but the man hiding the candy was twitching, sweating, and sniffling.  I thought, "What if he has a gun?  What if he has a needle?  What if he's a nut-job who will wait for me in the parking lot and stab me for turning him over to Market Basket employees who probably don't give a rat's ass what he steals, anyway?"  Being stabbed would be truly inconvenient since I still wanted to stop at the packie (liquor store, for you out-of-New-Englanders) and get some of those Capri Suns for adults (also known as pre-mixed margarita pouches). 

So I did what any other Lawrence-Survivor (lived there for a dozen years) would do:  I pretended I never even saw the guy and walked away.

Blame me the next time you go into Market Basket and there isn't any candy left in the Brach's bins.  Blame me if you eat produce that makes you deathly ill even after you've washed it.  Blame me if some random guy with kids who belong in pediatric ICU are eating free food they didn't even have to use an EBT card for because to me it wasn't worth getting a scar over, losing a kidney, or ending up in a pine box.

You can also blame me for saying the words that I knew would come back to bite me in the ass sooner rather than later.  Lawrence IS bad, kids.  Sooooooo baaaaaad  … unless you want to catch the plague or sit in Lawrence General Hospital ER waiting to get your faced stitched back on, which explains why there are so many Massachusetts plates in the New Hampshire store parking lots.  Well, that and tax-free shopping, but that's a story for another day.