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I work in customer service. Its a good time, everyone should try. I am exposed to some rare specimens of American humanity. Had a good one yesterday.

I was screamed at by a woman on the phone from Oakland, California. She was very angry as soon as I answered the phone. As near as I can tell the only thing that was frustrating her was she wanted some postcards and she did not have them. She wanted ten postcards. She didn't have them, so she was angry.

Now, one could chalk this up to a toddler-like "mine" attittude, general pushiness, or simply a bad day. But I see it as more than that. The woman had tried to find these postcards at other branches of the organization I work for and couldn't. This seemed to both baffle and infuriate her. She seemed to have the idea that it should be made easier for her to rabidly consume whatever it is she desires. Why should everything that she wants not be right at her fingertips. She apparently saw me as the entity standing in the way of her having ten postcards, and that why I got to taste her hot rage.

So, ravenous consumerism. That was obvious. That much anger over something so . . .quaint, though, made me think it might be something more.

They were just postcards. How on earth could postcards drive someone to the state she was. (She actually screamed at me, over the phone.) I got to thinking about how Americans, as organisms, have so little to concern ourselves with in the way of actual survival. (I guess I am speaking of a certain strata of Americans, but I think you get the idea) When humans don't have those kind of things to worry about, the mind can take on all different kinds characters. This is why philosophy exists probably, and also Dungeons and Dragons. I think whatever mania this woman suffered from was influenced by this idea. Some of the greatest aspects of civilization exist without tangible contribution to our survival (art for example) and I would not do without them.

It is important to keep these things in context, which is where I think this woman fell short. These postcards were important to her -- but were they really? Would they have the same order of importance if this woman, even once, had ever gone hungry for want of sustenance? If she had ever watched family members die from violence or preventable illness? If she witnessed, first-hand, the blind cruelty of war. If she lived in an openly repressive society? These are the type of struggles that most people in the world (the vast majority of people, make no mistake) have to deal with. Its a sliding scale all the way up to postcard difficulties.

That woman pissed me off. But I think most people I know have been in her place. Angry because we have difficulty obtaining that thing which we do not truly need. Every single American has more at any given time than most people in the world will have in their entire lifetime.