While sitting in the parking lot of a nearby grocery, I watched what appeared to be a mother and her late teens son. They walked, zig-zagging down the rows of parked cars while peeking in the windows of each and every vehicle. Occasionally, I would lose sight of them as other cars and people came and went, but twice, the mother and child reunited to chat briefly before resuming their wolves in search of a wounded sheep behavior.

There was a time in my life when I would have been appalled by this behavior. Now, I see it as the blue collar version of what happens in offices all day long. The nasty parasitic attitude that anyone who gets taken for a ride deserves it is applauded if you wear a white collar. This isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s the way it has always been. Reactions to blue and white locusts haven’t changed either. In public, we are supposed to pity the blue predators while admiring the white predators. In private, well, it doesn’t matter, because that’s the stuff that everyone pretends doesn’t happen.

I don’t ‘do’ pretend. I don’t pretend not to notice those who earn a living taking advantage of others any more than I pretend to be friends with people who should not ever be trusted.