“Study”, his mother had told him millions of times. That word haunted her throughout her life.. And maybe his mother was somewhat right., but she placed herself back in those teenage years and ended up at the same point. “If I didn't like it”, it was said. “I tried, “but I was bored”. And if, maybe now, time passed, He regretted not having bowed his elbows a little., yes ok, besides, She was reassured by the very fact of knowing that, somehow, set the counter to zero, I wouldn't have changed anything. You can't go against your own nature, one would have heard it said at some point. There are things that are as they are.
And the fact is that, despite that, it never went bad. She was happy doing anything. After all, work was work. What did it matter what specific thing he spent his time on?? The salary, Yeah. The salary was important, but that was all. He had many jobs and found himself more or less comfortable in all of them.. It didn't matter if she worked as a waitress in a bar or as a saleswoman in a clothing store., everywhere she felt reasonably comfortable with her colleagues and although she had her problems with some of her bosses, cannot say that the balance was too disastrous. Perhaps joining a security company was the last thing he would have imagined in his life., but, when someone encouraged her to do it, He was in one of those impasses between jobs and did not hesitate. Maybe, that could offer him some stability, it was said. Did the courses, she prepared for the tests and was admitted.
What he liked most about his job was that he was never in the same place.. Maybe they sent it to some department stores that, the following month, he was in front of some works, in a museum, guarding the stands of one of those fairgrounds or at the door of a bank. And if, Of course that was exhausting., standing all day, planted like a stake, pretending to have an authority that she herself knew she lacked or, at least, I doubted. But, for a character like yours, It would have been worse to end up in an office, For example, always seeing the same people passing by, one day after another. So, When the quarantine started and they sent her to the supermarket, it didn't seem like a bad destination.. In no time, I had already sympathized with almost all the local staff. But the people... The people thing was something else..
The thing about toilet paper would remain one of those mysteries that no one would be able to solve., like the Bermuda Triangle, the figures of Easter Island, the monoliths of Stonehenge or the drawings of the Nazca lines. She would be left with the question of why they wanted that.. Suppose, for a moment, yes, that the situation was really as desperate as some seemed to understand. Does that mean that, in the event of a catastrophe of the magnitude that they supposed, What people cared about most was having a clean ass? Really? Did you mean what, in case of extreme need, The first thing they would do would be to guarantee a good supply of double-layer padded paper.? And about the meat. The empty product shelves, like we were in a war. Please! But when things got really ridiculous, in your understanding, It was when everyone started taking the yeast. Suddenly, everyone had caught the fever of making bread, as if they didn't have their good supply of freshly made bars every day in the corresponding section. Was there a more painful image than that of a grown man, at the door of a supermarket at eight in the morning waiting for it to open to take his ration? That was when he realized that this was not a response to the fear of being hungry or suffering from any lack., if not to the purest frivolity.
But that wasn't the only thing. There were the usual robberies, but now they tried to be protected with the excuse of the pandemic. Like that time they caught that older woman who she tried to carry in her purse (and without paying) three lettuces and a bottle of whiskey. When they caught her, the woman said, angry, They were “first necessity” items., and what if it was abuse, and that there was no right. “And the whiskey?”, she told him, more than scandalized, amazed. What embarrassed her most was having to tell off a woman who could very well be her own mother.. Or your grandmother. But, within what fits, that was normal. What no longer seemed so normal to him were situations like those he caught taking handfuls of plastic gloves from the box he put at the entrance.. It was enough for you to go to help another person for another clever person to reach for the package and leave it empty.. "But, weren't they free?”, one told him, when he surprised him with his hands full. Free yes, but for everyone, told him, pretending to get very serious. Or that other one, thinking of your only benefit, One day he took an empty bottle from home to fill it to the brim with disinfectant liquid from the dispenser next to the glove box.. When he told him that he couldn't do that, The guy went crazy and they almost came to blows.. It was bad there.
But the worst of all was the lines.. A group of human beings waiting their turn to enter the supermarket is perhaps the worst experience one can imagine., He ended up telling his mother in one of those long phone conversations he frequently had with her. (and in which I sometimes reminded him that he should have studied, that she was worth it, something that bothered her like a stab in the liver, although he never said anything). It wasn't just those who tried to sneak past everyone else., It was the hidden war of constant surveillance of some over others that tormented her.. For more than obvious reasons, She used to help an elderly woman who had trouble putting on plastic gloves because of the atrophy she had in her hands due to arthritis she suffered from.. From seeing her in the queue so much, They had established a kind of routine between the two in which she spent time helping her with those gloves that stuck to her skin as if they had glue.. Well, as soon as I realized that it seemed like they were having a, the mess had already started. But, why didn't they ask before opening their mouth?, it was said, after having to explain the case again to try to reassure some people who, on, They always looked at her with disdain. But what she had the most fun was when she saw that other woman who was cleaning the handlebar of the shopping cart with sick care., using all the disinfectant liquid he could on the task (and more than advisable), and then grab it with your hand from one of the sides and drag it throughout the establishment as if it were your pet. Why the hell had he cleaned the handlebars if he then took the car anywhere? Or like that other woman, what, after spending your good dose of disinfectant on preparing your child, then he put it on the shopping cart tray and the child, curious, He ended up running his tongue along the edge as if the virus thing was little more than a simple joke there.. and the woman, of course, He was neither scandalized nor reprimanded the child for that.. And so their days passed.
At night, when he arrived home, exhausted, He recounted all these anecdotes and spent hours looking at the ceiling of his bedroom., saying, one day after another, that couldn't be. “Why are we so idiots?”?”, repeated, like, By repeating it you would open yourself up to the opportunity to find an answer that was reasonable.. one night, just before falling asleep, He was left wondering what his job really was.. Who was he protecting??, it was said. To the super? Yeah, but, about what? to the employees? Neither. After many turns, concluded that what really protected was the people. Yeah, but, whose?, he wondered. Well, from herself, it was said. Y, for the first time in his life, he thought he wasn't paid enough. So, she realized she was depressed. And who protects me from others?, it was said. And then he thought that this illness was not as it was told on the news.. It wasn't a flu, that of course, But neither was it how the symptoms that those experts who spoke every day in the media seemed to describe her.. It was the virus of meanness. And then he realized that, for the first time in fifteen years, a leave would be requested. And when he thought about it, He heard his mother's voice again, and what if I was sure, I wouldn't lose my job, and that she should have studied and she thought: fuck. GERARDO LEON
