Christmas and Hannukah buying time -- in an upper-middle class, very nice toy store, buying upper-middle class very nice toys....
The store provides free wrapping services in the back of the store, and I was there having my presents wrapped. For free. Saves me time and trouble. The wrapper was very nice. I was grateful.
But the woman behind me, very upper-middle class, not very nice, was not grateful. She started asking about the wrapping paper. The Chistmas paper had tiny evergreen trees. The Hannukah paper had large blue Jewish stars. The regular paper had multi-colored fish.
"Is this the only Christmas paper you have?" she asked. The wrapper said yes. The woman continued "you can't get any brighter color paper?" The wrapper said no. The woman went on "you should tell them up front that they need to get brighter colored paper." The wrapper said she would. The woman finished "You need brighter Christmas paper. It isn't fair!"
Isn't fair. Hmm, so this well-dressed, well-off, well-fed woman has focussed on the unfairness of the lack of free colorful Christmas wrapping paper.
Most of the world is poor and hungry. But it's unfair that she had to put up with dull-colored wrapping paper.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died since our invasion. But the toy store is unfair about its free Christmas wrapping paper.
Thousands of our soldiers come home broken and maimed from Iraq and Afghanistan, but she is given no choice in free Christmas wrapping paper.
The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.
But this poor soul can have her presents wrapped for free only in Christmas paper with evergreen trees.
I wonder what other unfairnesses she's experienced. Maybe her local store ran out of organic fresh turkeys weighing 20 lb before Thanksgiving. Maybe she couldn't find the exact color she wanted when shopping for Coach bags. Maybe the radio on/off button in her BMW was not in the most convenient spot. Maybe she couldn't get that cranberry stain off her apron. Maybe she couldn't quite afford that 2nd Subzero she wanted for her kitchen. Maybe her oldest child didn't get the lead role in the school musical. Maybe the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy didn't cut enough of her taxes.
Who knows what other trials and tribulations this woman has suffered. After all, isn't she entitled to the best in everything? The unfairness that such privileged folks experience is just mind-boggling.