After another day in the office and as every Monday and Thursday, I was driving to Nordersted, the nearby city where my daughter and her best friend is having Cheerleader training. I became a bit hungry. I decided to stop at a gas station and buy a sandwich. It was around 7pm. Not that late.
I stepped into the gas stations store and was greeted by a very friendly guy with the usual “Moin”. I headed to the bread display and asked the guy if there was no sandwiches left.
“No sorry.” the guy said.
“Ok I’ll take a packed sanwich then.” I said walked to the bord where I thought I will find them.
“Erm … the sandwiches are on the other side …” the friendly guy said.
“Oh thank you!” I replied and found the sandwiches.
After fetching a salmon sandwich (no meat!). I went to the checkout. The bread display was placed directly next to it. I looked to the display and said
“And I will take a pretzel stick also.” and was about to take a paper bag to put it inside. But I heard a
“Wait please. Wait! Please!” from the guy behind the checkout. He grabbed a big paper bag and told me
“You can take everything that is left in there except the donuts.” he said.
“Erm you mean everything? But why don’t you sell it?”
“Yes! Please take it. I have to clean the display in a minute and I am forced to throw away everything that is left into the trash bin. You can take it.”
“Oh wow that’s very nice of you. Then I will take these three pretzel sticks.” I said.
“But why don’t you take everything?” he asked. “Just take it and give it to some homeless people.” he said. I was kind of puzzled and did not expect this. So what I said was super stupid.
“You know, I will pick up my daughter from sports and then I will drive back to Schnelsen.” (Schnelsen is the most North-Western part of Hamburg). “I don’t think there are homeless people.” The moment I said this I immediately remembered the place where some poor folks hang around. Such an idiot I was.
“Oh, I don’t think there are no homeless people.” he said.
I did not reply further. I needed only to pay for the sandwich. The pretzles have been free. I watched the guy and I saw he was disappointed about me not taking more bread but obviously trying to find a stupid excuse to not take more. I paied by credit card, thanked the guy again very much and left the gas station. He replied with a sad and resigned “Bye”.
This story is the perfect example how stupid I - and I think many of us would - react to such a well-intentioned offer from a person like this guy I just wrote about. I am extremely sorry that I reacted that way. He was a “simple” clerk and understood, that it is a shame to throw away food what could help others to have something to eat. I strongly believe that he is well aware of the situation we are in. We throw way 1/3 of food in Germany. Other countries throw away even more. The problem is, that food production is a main driver for the climate catastrophe. So it is stupid to produce too much and then simply throw it away. But more stupid is, that I was not able to get the intention and use the food to recycle it in any fuckin’ way.
We need to change. We need to understand. This was the best lecture for me in a long time. I am deeply thankful to the professor I met today. He tought me a very good lesson. But my grade was absolutely an F or a 6 as our system in Germany says.