A Tale of Soup

The bag boy’s grandmother told me the story, and her eyes misted with tears.

Her teenage grandson is working his first “real” job, a bag boy at a grocery store. He enjoys his job, and doesn’t even complain about the heat that surely makes collecting shopping carts even harder in the South Carolina hot afternoons. He does his job, and listens well to his boss. At the end of his shift, he drives home to eat his meal, and certainly a snack or two before checking his MySpace and going to bed. If his parents aren’t home, he can hop in his car and drive to his grandparents’ house… Granny always has something good to eat.

Last week, around 6:00 pm, when the sun was starting to lower itself into the horizon and the heat of the day still made the back of your neck sweat, another teenage boy entered the store.

He was hungry, and hot, and had no money with him. He walked through the automated door into the icy coolness of the air-conditioned store, and into the building full of food that his stomach so desperately craved.

No one seemed to notice him, or, maybe he was watched the whole time. He walked through a few aisles, and then, down the aisle of soup.

He took some soup, and ran. If it was a package of Ramen Noodles, or a can of Progresso Soup, the details were not given. But the boy, soup in hand, ran from the store.

A worker of the store yelled, “Stop him!”

And the new bag boy did what he was told, and ran after the boy holding the soup. He never hesitated; he did what he was told, with adrenaline coursing through his veins.

The boy with the soup, heart nearly busting out of his chest, ran with all his might. A man, about to enter the store, saw the scene before him, and grabbed the boy with the soup, never hesitating.

The boy with the soup drew out a knife, “a switchblade”, the Grandmother said. He waved it in front of him, and cut the man- or stabbed- or both. The man’s son ran up, and grabbed the boy, and threw him to the ground, and held him until the police arrived. Someone had the sense to call 911 during the melee, and the police department is not so far away.

The bag boy stood in wonder, and will be forever changed. The man and his son were dazed, and marveled at how a simple trip to the grocery store could end up this way.

And the boy with the soup… all he wanted to do was to eat something.

The grandmother lamented that fact. “If he had been hungry, and had told someone, surely someone would have bought him some food. I would have bought him some groceries myself.”

Thievery affects small and large businesses, and is certainly above reproach. What drives a young man at such a young age so able to pull a knife so quickly and expertly? When you study Maslow’s hierarchy of needs you realize that by not fulfilling your basic needs, you can’t think of much else. And to need a knife to protect yourself may be the case as much as a way to ensure that the food was taken.

When we say our prayers, we need to pray for an end to violence and an end to hunger. We have come to a realization that we need not leave the country (nor the state) for a “mission project”.

We have young men that need mentors, and children left unattended. We have hungry people that are going unfed, and violence that is spreading. We hear of more and more weapons on the street, in the hands of far too many people- and now, even children.

And we hear these stories, shake our heads, and feel powerless.

All we can do is pray, and be guided to do the right thing at the right time and to be a good example. And use our votes wisely in each election to have the right people in office to advocate for the individuals in our communities.

We all deserve to be safe, and deserve to be fed.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. ~
Mother Teresa