Ants!

I'm in my morning meeting today.  It was a good meeting.  I shared.  It's always a great meeting when I share.  This Program would really work out well for everyone if we could simply restrict the proceedings to me sharing about myself for the whole hour.

Actually it was a good meeting primarily because I had decided not to share, figuring that listening might be helpful occasionally.  When I make that decision I tend to spend a lot more time hearing what other people have to say instead of preparing my remarks for public consumption.  Unfortunately, my remarks - which take a long time to prepare, mentally - aren't all that interesting.

The chairwoman said after the break: "I'd like to hear from Seaweed."

"I'd like to hear from Seaweed, too," I replied truthfully and a little ruefully. 

Anyway, after the meeting a guy who shows up from time to time - usually announcing that he has less than thirty days clean and sober - asked me for a ride somewhere.  He's a little on the crazy side so I thought of dancing away but went ahead and agreed to the ride - help, after all, is given to those who want the help and not to those I want to help.  It's a fine distinction.  

As we made our way down the steps of the clubhouse he mentions that he has a wheelchair, too. He kind of tossed it out casually.  It reminded me of the cute woman hitchhiking as her hulking boyfriend hides in the bushes.  From my vantage point I can see that the wheelchair is piled with his possessions.  It's just standing in for a shopping cart - the guy is apparently homeless.  I guess these are most of his possessions, stuffed into various plastic bags and backpacks.

When we get to my car he hands me a clear plastic bag containing food - chips, mostly, and god knows what else - that he had left on the seat of the wheelchair while he was in the meeting.  It's swarming with ants.  On the wheelchair itself is thick line of determined ants purposefully making their way up the wheel, across the seat, and to the recently vacated location of the food bag.  I made a comment about all of the ants on the bag and this guy made a really solid effort to get the bag closed so that the ants couldn't get inside.  While this didn't solve the ant problem I could see that he wasn't proud of the fact his shit was covered with ants.

I didn't say anything else.  I furtively tried to knock some of the ants off the chair - not a few of them but big handfuls of them - as he loaded his stuff into the car.  I could only surmise what was in those bags.  I could see a few liberated ants making tracks for various nooks and crannies in my car.  I was annoyed but not freaked - those ants had a short life ahead of them in a hot, food bag-less car but still . . . 

The man was grateful.  I need to remember that he is a person, too.  Maybe a little grimy and a little frayed around the edges, but as deserving as anyone of my kindness and respect.

Fortunately, I wasn't in the Very Expensive Car.  I would have been pissed.