Katrina Hits Home

With all of the horrible things going on in the world lately, sometimes it is hard to place yourself in someone else's shoes and realize that each tragedy contains living, breathing, laughing and crying people. This may seem stupid, but it was driven home to A* and I yesterday after a trip to the gas station.
A* is totally addicted to that cheap, 99 cent juice that they sell at the gas station. You know the one, that comes in the gallon jug and is basically sugar water? Well anyways, the kind that he drinks is called Artic Splash, and we have to buy a gallon every day. It is all that he drinks at home. So the past week or two he has noticed that whenever he goes in the gas station they are out of juice. He has had to resort to buying other means of liquid refreshments. Yesterday, seeing that once again there was no Artic Splash on the shelf, he asked the service man if the company went out of business or something. The man replied that no, they didn't go out of business but that A* probably wouldn't be seeing his beloved juice for a long time. Why? Because the company is based in Louisiana.
A* came out to the car and started complaining about the lack of juice. He told me the reason, and before we pulled out of the parking lot both of us stopped, looked at each other, and he stopped talking.
"You know, we really are lucky," I said softly.
A* placed his hand on mine, and nodded. We sat in silence for a moment, the traffic rushing past us and the rain reflecting in the street lights. We thought of those people in Louisiana, who once had a job at the Artic Splash plant and now probably have nothing. We thought of all the other people who are without a home, or clothes, or family members, and realized that getting upset about juice is not worth the effort. We are so lucky, and it took this little incident to make the situation into something human, something that we could grasp. We held hands, and drove off into the night to our warm little apartment, and we are so lucky.