Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 15:12:23 -0400
From: Bruce Soluski
Subject: Formula Man
Dear Mr. Landrith,
I am writing to you because you might understand why I am disturbed.
On my way home from work I stopped into the local Biggs Supermarket. At checkout there was a commotion ahead of me. The man with a small child ahead of me was ethnicly different from me and most of the people around me. The manager came over to the man and said something. The man exclaimed: “You will not sell it to me because I am not American!”
My turn to check out. Jokingly I said: “I am an American. Can I buy stuff?” The cashier said the man had tried to buy too much baby formula. The box boy said “They use it to make drugs.” I knew a person could be arrested for having baking soda and a frying pan, but I had not heard of mainlining baby formula. I asked him how he knew and he told me he had read it. I asked him if he had read it at Biggs and he replied “Yes”, but shortly told me it was not officially Biggs.
I asked the young girl cashier why they did not sell the man the formula and she told me: “they send it back home and sell it on the black market for $20 a can!” I asked her if maybe the guy had a few babies home. She told me THOSE PEOPLE come in every few days and buy the same stuff. She assured me it must be for the black market.
I took my purchaces out to my car then returned to the manager’s desk. Another young girl was there (with a pierced tongue). I asked about the situation and she told me they restrict the amount of items one person can buy such as sale items. I asked if the formula was on sale and she told me it was not but they needed to keep it on the shelves for the people with WICK coupons. If they do not have it for the WICK people they loose money big time. She assured me that THOSE PEOPLE will just sell it on the black market, especially the iron rich variant. I asked her who “those” people were and she said “the formula people”.
So the “formula man” should have just bought two cans of baby food and not gotten upset. He could have come in again and bought two more cans. But if those Biggs employees showed their bigotry to me I am sure the “formula man” felt it also. It is also ironic that the Biggs chain was originally founded by a French company.
I may be a white man but I know something about bigotry. My mother was born in Scotland making me a second generation immigrant. I wear my hair long down my back, so I get remarks. My computer is a Macintosh, so I know what it feels like to be an ignored minority.
It would please me if you would publish this in your letters.
Bruce Soluski