Crossing a Picket Line

So I have no interest, ever, in crossing a picket line. I know it's a little dated, but I am hugely in favour of unions and union rights and pay that is sufficient to support a family and benefits commensurate with living and paying taxes in a first-world country.

So imagine my dismay when a few days ago en route to an appointment I noticed an inflatable rat and several union members standing outside my sister's old apartment building (across the street from mine). That is that, and it wouldn't have surprised me at all as I was always a little suspicious of the management of the building. But the real problem was that the union members surrounded the whole block, including a fish restaurant, a blockbuster, and most tragically, the whole foods. See the thing is, whole foods is the only supermarket within an 8 block radius and moreover, the only one at all that stocks the gluten-free foods I need to survive. But I can't cross a picket line. So I stayed away for days, waiting, hoping, that at 5 today, for some magical reason, the union folk would leave.

They were gone, and I got my necessary supplies, but I felt and feel horrible. I feel like I crossed the line even though I didn't, technically at least. Of course, my whole premise in entering the whole foods is that whole foods is not actually the subject of the protest; rather, the owner of the building is the subject (everything is housed in one like 30-40 story building). If it was actually the whole foods, well, I don't know what I would do. I suppose I would have to find rice flour and start making my own pizzas and pretzels. Probably a good survival exercise, but not sure I am up to that on the handful of hours of awakedness I have per day.

Random plug - glutino products, while wildly-overpriced, rock. I will do a separate posting of the best gluten-free foods so you don't have to spend years trying all kinds of creepy stuff like I did.