Thanksgiving

Convenience Stories: Chapter 3

November 23, 2023: On Thanksgiving, I realized that I didn’t have anything to eat, and everything was closed, so I drove around until I found a local Indian grocery where I could stock up on palak kofta curry and naan bread. The owner Vijay (“It’s like Victor,” he said, helpfully) told me that he stayed open so people don’t have to eat gas station food on Thanksgiving.

“Yes. I work in a lot of gas stations,” I said. “It’s terrible to see what passes for food.” For some reason, I start using slightly stilted English when talking to people with thick accents. (At least I don’t yell at them like they’re deaf.)

“What do you do?” Vijay asked

I explained that I repaired lottery machines.

“But you don’t gamble, do you?”

“No. I’m not allowed, actually. But I wouldn’t.” (There are two big rules at the lottery: don’t buy lottery tickets, and don’t drive drunk.)

“Saying nothing bad about them,” Vijay continued, “but people who gamble are less than animals.”

“Okay.”

“You see this,” he pointed to a poster with several bullet point items. It had the word “Ramadan” printed on the bottom in large Helvetica Bold letters. He gestured to one of the items, the word Fitrah.

“You see this?”

“Sure.”

“Your soul, it has an operating system, like MS-DOS or something. Fitrah,” he points at the sign again, “everyone, every living thing, is born with this. It’s about knowing good, understanding the existence of God, things like that.”

I nodded in agreement, to be polite.

“Animals, they too have this. I will use a five-dollar word, ‘inherent nature.’ They know how to survive. Take a bird, for example. It knows how to build a nest, right? No one teaches the bird; it just knows. This is their way, their nature. They always act in ways that ensure their survival. They look for food, avoid danger. They have this strong sense of self-protection. The person who gambles, they are lower than animals. They are doing things that harm rather than help themselves. Are you religious?”

I didn’t know what to say here. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him I had signed up for a correspondence course on sorcery and witchcraft. Fortunately, he barreled ahead without waiting for an answer.

“Go to a mosque, they will accept you. Talk to God, listen to your mother and father. Be good, okay?”

“Oh, sure. I do.”

“A mosque, not like the terrorist kind. Kill 2,000 people, take 700 hostages or something. They’re less than animals.”