How I Traded Lives

     In the parking lot of the market I bend over and pick up a note that’s folded in half. A shopping list, perhaps dropped on the way into the store, on stationery with a birdhouse and flowers. Must be a woman’s, I think. Only two food items on it: melon and avacado (misspelled). Must be for a social event. But next on the list - a brace, six pins, four long screws. Someone’s hurt! Something’s broken!
     I can’t help whoever is hurt. Or use the pins and four long screws for who knows what. But I can buy the food items on the list. So call me crazy (Duane does), but I buy a canary melon for $2.66 and four avocados for $1.92.
     At home, I cut into the melon and avocados, then raise a spoon in a toast to someone I don’t know. I briefly trade lives through a stranger’s shopping list. And I wonder whether my life is all that different from this unknown person. Sometimes, I’ve tasted sweet treats. Other times, I’ve needed to be patched together with braces and pins and screws.
​     That’s how life comes - the good and the bad on the same shopping list.