Beware of Holiday Shopping
I was watching trailers for The Mist by Stephen King & it really got me thinking about the group dynamic. The Mist chronicles David Drayton who gets trapped in a grocery store with some sort of mist. As the story unravels David finds that he’s afraid of the mist as well as the people in the store who had always been his friends & neighbors up to this point.
It really drove home the fact that you never know when you are going to get stuck in a situation where other people can influence your very survival. For instance, one day I went shopping. Shocking I know. I had been to this store dozens of times before. I heard a kid crying behind me as I was walking out of the bathroom. The store was crowded that day & I left the restroom in a line. Suddenly, the woman in front of me turned around & started yelling at the woman behind me to make her kid be quiet. I was literally stuck in between the two. I didn’t know if I should say anything as the women started yelling & threatening each other. I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t fathom yelling at anyone, let alone a stranger, in a store. Finally I was able to duck away, I don’t know if store security was involved or not. It’s a funny story now, but it was very tense at the time. It could’ve been so different if the first woman would’ve just asked the second lady if she needed any help. The truth is we all handle stress differently, some people become heroes & others turn into monsters.
