{"id":1538,"date":"2017-01-23T14:37:55","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T20:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2017-01-23T14:37:55","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T20:37:55","slug":"untaken-18-jan-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/untaken-18-jan-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Untaken – 18 Jan 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no doubt that the larger world can be a scare place.\u00a0 Leaving the (relative) safety of our dwellings and workplaces can be a stressful thing.\u00a0 The dangers lie not in just the obvious big things, e.g. crime, car accidents, etc., but also in the little unseen things, i.e. germs.\u00a0 Any place where large numbers of people gather can be a hotbed for germs, and that includes the grocery store.\u00a0 Some of the larger grocery stores I’ve visited have an alcohol pad dispenser so a shopper can wipe down the cart or basket.\u00a0 Normally I’ll see people take one, wipe down the cart handle, dispose of the pad, and be on their way to shopping.<\/p>\n

This did not prepare me for what I saw this night, however.\u00a0 As I was grabbing a cart (meanwhile ignoring the sterile wipe dispenser), I glanced at a gentleman wiping down his cart.\u00a0 It wasn’t the handle he was wiping, though.\u00a0 He was wiping the metal around the top of the basket.\u00a0 I had to look away for a moment to process what I was seeing.\u00a0 When I looked again, he was taking another pad from the dispenser.\u00a0 Then he proceeded to wipe down the metal bars along the side of the cart.\u00a0\u00a0I looked at his face.\u00a0 There wasn’t worry or fear in his expression, just a determination to get through this task and proceed to the next.\u00a0 He was executing these movements next to the\u00a0dispenser, but out of the way of other\u00a0incoming customers and\u00a0partially obscured from their view.<\/p>\n

I can’t make any assumptions as to why he was seemingly intent on sterilizing every surface that could possibly contact his skin during his shopping time.\u00a0 Perhaps he had a weakened immune system.\u00a0 That begs the obvious question as to why he would be out anyway.\u00a0 Didn’t he know how acquired immunity works?\u00a0 Without exposure to some pathogens, his body will never learn how to fight them.\u00a0 Did he simply have OCD, was aware, and tried not to let it affect others?<\/p>\n

That last possibility seemed the most plausible.\u00a0 I had my phone in my hand (I had taken it out to pull up by grocery list)\u00a0but quickly put it in my pocket.\u00a0 This was his cross to bear and the fact that he was away from others seemed a statement that he would bear it alone, at least out here.\u00a0 For me to have taken a photograph of his activity, without his permission, could come across as mocking.\u00a0 Mocking was never my intent, but I decided not to leave my intent (which was fascination at that which I did not understand) to question.<\/p>\n

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There is no doubt that the larger world can be a scare place.\u00a0 Leaving the (relative) safety of our dwellings and workplaces can be a stressful thing.\u00a0 The dangers lie not in just the obvious big things, e.g. crime, car accidents, etc., but also in the little unseen things, i.e. germs.\u00a0 Any place where large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[193],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}