Talk Without Speaking

On Saturday I met up with Rachel and her parents for brunch. It was a great opportunity to talk to Rachel’s dad who has been into Auyuittuq before and ask him about any questions that we might have. When chatting about food he mentioned beef jerky as a really good bang-for-your-buck, low-weight energy food. When he hiked on Baffin he brought beef jerky whereas others in his party brought trail mix. He said that his companions were greedily eyeing his beef jerky within a couple of days.

Fast forward to a couple of days later - this finds Cat and I in Safeway looking at the different brands of beef jerky. Not being jerky connoisseurs by any means we’re looking at the different brands, comparing prices and weight/volume stuff.

“Do you want to try some?” - this actually comes from a nearby Safeway employee who has obviously been watching us watch the beef jerky.

“Ahh…sure…”, we say. Being offered to try something from an unopened package is beyond our grocery shopping experience; we are initially unsure as to how to respond.

“What flavour?” Safeway dude is pulling knife from his pocket and seems perfectly willing to cut open any of the bags that we want. In fact, he seems quite happy to open multiple bags if we so desire.

“Err…what do you like?” We have no idea what to do.

“Might as well go with original”. This seems logical to us.

Next we know, the bag has been sliced open and we are being offered beef jerky. We both grab a piece, not sure if we are supposed to grab large pieces or small pieces. As we tell Safeway dude about why we’re, in fact, shopping for beef jerky he takes a piece too. This is feeling a bit surreal but I’m enjoying hanging in aisle whatever with Cat and Safeway dude munching on some jerky. I can imagine that I am instead marching in the Baffin tundra, chowing down.

We thank him and grab the rest of our groceries. As we walk home I start thinking about this strange shopping experience. This morning Safeway employees voted 98% to strike and I think about the whole “try anything” strategy. How clever it would be were the Safeway union to tell their employees to bend over backwards to do anything to help their customers.

To be honest, I traditionally don’t have too difficult a time crossing picket lines. In the back of my mind I can too easily remember that 6000 people died today because they don’t have clean drinking water. Deciding that you want a raise or more benefits seems kind of unappreciative of the paradise society that we live in. If you’re reading this then you live amongst the privileged. That said, I know that I won’t cross a Safeway picket line; I’ll think of Safeway dude and his jerky offer.