Cashier Laughed At Old Woman Counting Pennies So I Did Something That Got Me Arrested

I spent the next hour with her in that grocery store. Found out her name was Eva. She was eighty-three years old. Her husband had died six months ago. Her only son had passed from cancer ten years before that. She was completely alone.

She’d been living on Social Security. $1,247 a month. Her rent was $950. That left her less than $300 for food, medicine, utilities, everything else. She’d been slowly starving for months.

“I used to eat two meals a day,” she told me as we walked through the aisles. “Then I went down to one. Now sometimes I don’t eat at all. I give my food to my cat. Misha is all I have left. I can’t let her starve.”

My heart was breaking. This woman had survived the worst humanity had to offer. Had rebuilt her life. Had worked and loved and raised a family. And now, at eighty-three, she was starving herself to feed her cat.

“Eva, I’m going to fill this cart,” I told her. “You’re going to tell me everything you need. Food for you and food for Misha. And you’re not going to argue with me.”

She started crying again. “I can’t accept charity. I’ve never accepted charity. Even in the camps, I worked. I earned my bread.”

“This isn’t charity,” I said. “This is one human being helping another. That’s all.”

I filled three carts. Real food. Meat and vegetables and fruit and bread. Cat food and cat treats. Toilet paper and soap and laundry detergent. Everything she needed for at least a month.

The bill was $487.32. I didn’t blink. Just handed over my card.

The same people who’d been complaining about her holding up the line were now watching in silence. Some looked ashamed. Good. They should be.

I loaded her groceries into my saddlebags and the small trailer I pull behind my bike sometimes. Eva looked at my motorcycle with wide eyes.

“You’re a biker,” she said. “I should have known. The vest, the patches.”

“Does that scare you?”

She laughed. A real laugh this time. “Young man, I survived Josef Mengele. A man on a motorcycle does not scare me.”

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