Those Darn Immigrants

Patty was in the line at a deli, and it was moving very slowly. There was only one employee. Everyone was being patient, and the woman in front of Patty was also sympathetic. “They’re shorthanded. There is just one woman working.” She seemed like a very nice and considerate person.

Patty was wearing her mask (as we both prefer doing in crowds) and offered the explanation that our Grandchildren have been in and out of the hospital with RSV and pneumonia. We have other Grandkids to consider. and both Patty and our daughter work in Health Care, possibly “exposing others who don’t need any more problems. We feel we cannot be too careful.

Then, the “nice” woman offered her cure for all the illnesses and the pandemic, “All the immigrants are causing it.” Patty was stunned and didn’t know what to say.

Otherwise “nice people’’ can hold the cruelest thoughts.

As I thought about it, there was lots that could have been said in response, but maybe in such cases, silence is golden.

Maybe that woman should go express her solution to the remaining Nations who lived in North America before the European immigrants flooded their shores. They actually did bring in all the plagues that wiped out so many people and their cultures. Maybe she could reprimand them saying, “You should have built an impenetrable wall on the entire East Coast of North America.” But then who would all the “nice people” have to blame?