Editor’s note: Mark Bradford is contributing occasional posts from his diary on traveling the country with his wife Wendy while they rent out their Mishawaka home for six months.
Day 103 of our 190 day sojourn
October 6, 2023 — Indianapolis
I know this is going to sound like bragging, but it is not. It is simply a reminder that we are only renting time as souls on this earth. And if you have that mindset, the way you treat life events changes dramatically. We are renters of life, not owners. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Today, I was getting a haircut and got paired up with a woman who was, in her own words, having a bad day. As soon as I sat in the chair, expecting a seven-minute haircut, her cell phone went off. It went off at least three times, one of which was her kids, I think.
Suddenly it was a 15-minute haircut.
She was working at a high end Great Clips, surrounded by million dollar homes. This woman came from the other side of the tracks. And she was having a very bad day. There were issues at home that I did not catch, but more obvious was the fact she had left her keys in her car and the tow truck company wanted $99 to help her out. She did not have $99. “I have $80,” she pleaded with just a hint of determined desperation, “Will you please do it for $80?”
To its credit, the towing company agreed to help her out. As she hung up the phone, she held back her fear. “This was all I needed today. I have to have my car and I don’t have a choice,” she said with the resolve that only a determined mother could muster.
So, there I sat. I knew I had $60 in cash (three $20s) and I knew I really had no good place to put that cash. The woman was working hard and dealing with some sort of family squabble.
As I sat there, some words I had heard years ago from a poverty expert came to me: “Being in poverty,” she said. “is like painting a wall with a sniper shooting at you. You are trying to do something to help yourself, but in trying to do so, you have to dodge bullets.” The expert went on to explain that because of societal, cultural, and personal factors, very often the person in poverty cannot succeed.
I recognized that this woman was trying to dodge another bullet. Here she was, doing the right thing by working, and then she does something we have all done, which is to lock the keys in her car. Because she apparently does not have a support system to bring her another set of keys (which is how I would have handled it because I am not in poverty), she was stuck having an expensive tow truck charge her $80 (that she had earmarked to get through payday), Just another negative event in her life. Another reason she will never get out of poverty.
So I sat there while she tried to remain composed and get my haircut done. She was unable to be happy, nor was she able to do the typical hair-cutter pitter-pat talk. It was obvious she really was up against the wall. The same wall she was trying to paint while dodging the bullets of daily life.
She never asked me to help her out. I am sure that with all the million dollar houses within 400 yards of her workplace, there were a few trumpian types who would have called her a loser and should be fired for taking personal phone calls while at work and inconveniencing me, the customer.
But I am not trumpian. I simply ask myself on a daily basis, how would my father, a man who came from a severely broken home and had to learn what empathy and honor meant on his own, handle it? Without a doubt he would do exactly what I did, because I did exactly what he would have done. I decided to listen to my father.
At the payment counter, I slipped her $60 cash and then tipped her $20 on top of the haircut charge.
And then she cried.