Ikea

This week is my Spring Break. It's not all that exciting as I'm staying home and getting work done. But, it does give me a few days off from school with not a lot on my list of things to do. So, in the spirit of being care-free, I took a jaunt to one of my favorite, but rarely visited, spots - Ikea. The Ikea near me is about twenty minutes away and I was more than happy to take advantage of going on a week day when there would be better parking and less people. I didn't really need anything, but I was eager to just go and walk around and look at stuff that I might buy someday when I'm no longer living in a studio apartment that is already full of Ikea furniture.

One of my favorite parts of going to Ikea is eating at the cafe. I love their food and I love how cheap it is. And, lucky for me, the day I went was $2.49 Swedish Meatball day! I'm not sure how much they are regularly ($3.99?), but $2.49 seemed like a steal for a plate of meatballs, potatoes, the fruit sauce and gravy that comes with it. I took my lunch and happily ate at a table by the window, watching the cars in the parking lot and reflecting on To Kill a Mockingbird, which I had just finished reading for my Law & Lit class. Then I looked up and saw a man at a table across the cafe. He appeared disheveled and was ravenously eating his food, using his spoon more like a shovel than a utensil. I instantly assumed he was homeless. And I instantly started crying.

Now, I am not typically a sensitive or soft-hearted person. I've actually been described as a bitch, cold, stony, and at times rather unfeeling. But, something struck a chord in that moment. It wasn't that the man was homeless and looked so hungry. It was the vast difference between his world and mine and how both our paths had led us to the same place. Here I was, treating this lunch like a fun, side adventure to my everyday life and here was this man who best chance to eat a well-balanced meal was waiting for $2.49 meatball day at Ikea. My first reaction was to feel bad because something I didn't take seriously could mean so much to something else. My second reaction was to figure out why I felt bad, why I was crying in a public cafe after eating one of my favorite meals. I realized that while spending little to no money on lunch is fun for me because it's different, it is the only way that a lot of Americans can eat. And, to me, that is just not right. If Ikea can offer good, delicious, somewhat healthy food (hey, it's better than the crap at McDonalds) for a cheap price, then no one in this country should go hungry. No one should have to rely on cheap, fastfood to feed their kids. We shouldn't be eating crap from the grocery store because it's all we can afford. Good food should be available to everyone and it shouldn't all be sold at Whole Foods prices.

It is a shame that only the wealthy and educated in this country get to eat well. And even most of those people choose to continue to eat crap. It's a shame that our government regulates what we eat but doesn't put good food at the forefront. It's a shame that over 50% of our country is obese and Sarah Palin has the balls to mock Michelle Obama for regulating her children's diets. Seriously people. We are unhealthy and we need to do something about it. We have so many poor people with no healthy, affordable options and we have a culture where crap is so readily available. We need to understand that healthy food should be a right everyone can partake in and that we, as a country, should ban the crap from our diets. We're letting them control us and we're letting them get away with our health and our lives.

Sorry. Ranting.