My five words were found in the Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, which I found on my shelf. I have no idea how it got there, but since the dictionary I was hoping to find was MIA, I welcomed the foundling with open arms, and a pair of +1.5 glasses that belongs to my SO.
The words are: irradiate, settle, anthropomorphism, sin, and luminary.
I saw the old woman at the end of the cereal aisle blocking my way and automatically initiated my usual evasive maneuver, which involved turning my cart around and heading in the other direction. But something about her frail, petite frame and the distressed look on her face made me change my mind—perhaps she needed help getting a box off the top shelf. I pushed my cart in her direction and looked straight ahead, aiming to maintain plausible deniability in case, as I was still hoping, she did not want anything from me. But as soon as I got next to her, a skinny, crooked finger of warning went up, missing my face by a few inches.
"Psst!" she said, whispering in a secretive but forceful (and thus, alas, spit-laden) way. "Don't go out there. It's not safe!"
I might have looked confused as I peered past her into the fish and meat area, expecting to see a disgruntled employee wielding a box cutter and a label gun, or at least a major dairy spill, but there was nothing out there but spotless, well-kept shrines to patriotic consumption and carnivory.
"The meat," she said ominously. "They irradiate it and they won't tell us."
It took me some time to process this, but once I did, I was relieved—I could settle this quickly and go about my business. I carefully explained, in simple but scientific terms, that ionizing radiation is used to kill harmful bacteria—which can be especially dangerous for the elderly—and that it doesn't stay in the food after treatment, making it perfectly safe for consumption, not to mention for merely walking by in the supermarket. I thought I was rather thorough and convincing, but the look of pity in her eyes said otherwise.
"That's what they want you to think," she informed me with disdain. "I can feel the radiation from here. But the real problem is what it does to the bacteria. It's a sin! It's not right!"
I myself tended to think of the animals slaughtered to fill those freezers with some discomfort, since I knew they didn't want to be another species' dinner any more than I did. But such anthropomorphism stopped at the phylum boundary, as far as I was concerned, and no amount of good will and meditation could make me extend it to spiders, cockroaches, or Escherichia coli. I was thinking about how to explain this when she clarified what she meant.
"Radiation causes mutations. We could end up with monster bacteria that's resistant to antibiotics and could kill us all."
For a second, I considered inquiring what luminary of pseudoscience this information had come from, but by then my primary goal was to get past her and her still raised finger as fast as I could.
"I won't buy any of it," I said, truthfully. But she didn't hear me.
"Then when we're gone, they can evolve and take over the world," she concluded.
"May they have better luck than us," I said, and reverted to my original plan. I backed up, turned around, and left her guarding the evolving bacteria at her end of the aisle.
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Comments: 19
found a small word that needs to be changed. i think you meant to use THROUGH.
but the look of pity her eyes threw me said otherwise.
Now I avoid the grocery store during the daylight hours and shop after 10pm. Thus the only people I need to practice my avoidance techniques on are the guys and gals that stock the shelves late at night.
CC, what I think needs to happen there is that "her eyes threw me" needs to be changed to the much simpler "in her eyes". (I did mean "threw" as in a glance being thrown at someone, but it's clearly not working, and I suspected it wasn't even while I was writing it.)
The repetition of "my cart" in the first paragraph doesn't look good in the morning light, either.
Kathleen, I'm a veritable old lady magnet. Do you have any theory as to what causes this strange phenomenon?
Good thing I live so near the grocery store that I walk there. (And the rest of them I don't go to unless there's an extreme need.)
One suggestion: I paused when I read "but the look of pity her eyes threw me," thinking, "through me?" then picturing eyes actually throwing a look. It might read more smoothly as "but the look of pity in her eyes."
(Plus I'm still recovering from the fact that Charles called this "brilliant".)
Blessings and best wishes - S.