“Anyone who believes the competitive spirit in America is dead has never been in a supermarket when the cashier opens another checkout line.” —Ann Landers
Your Turn, NH, a weekly New Hampshire Union Leader feature, gave ink to young Natasha Cole of Hudson, a U-Mass Lowell Student and cashier to speak out to the diseased and afflicted unwashed masses. Cole asks customers to, “Have some courtesy for your cashiers this holiday season,” and not to spew her with your collection of germs and bodily juices while shopping at the local grocery store. The points made by Cole are valid. No dispute there. I know nobody who desires to get sick over the holiday season, much less anytime.
I, as a consumer, being forced to use such establishments, am not lost on Cole’s underlying sentiments. In fact, those very establishments that Natasha speaks of have overtly acknowledged the need for such disease consciousness with the installation of sanitary wipe dispensers at the grocery store point of entry. Customers are able to wipe down the shopping cart handle. Waterless hand sanitizer is also often present. But while the topic of exposure minimization would appear to be the thesis, the underpinning thesis her topic is couched in, is courtesy. Grocery stores! absolute fodder for social scientists and cultural commentators like me, so I would be remiss pass up such an opportunity to address…even expand the concept of grocery store courtesy.
Sharing the “indiscretions” of the opposing party are the foundation of blogging and, in fact, politics in general. Not sharing them, when they occur among your own party leadership, members, supporters, or factions your leadership have embraced, might be construed as bias or hypocrisy.
Rep Ken Wyler, R-Kingston NH, took the Portsmouth Herald to task, in Fosters Daily Democrat, (
