I guess it wasn’t a rumor

I had heard that Mr. Todd had passed. I had assumed it was a rumor because I didn’t hear it from any of the people that I had worked with at Winn-Dixie. Mr. Todd was the store manager there and everybody liked him. Everybody knew him. He was a kind person so when my dad told me that he died on his lawnmower while doing yard work (because of the heat), I thought it was a rumor- that maybe he had just gotten heat sick and ended up hospitalized. 

But the truth: is he did in fact die, and nobody knows if it was a heart attack or if it was heat stroke. His family did not want to do an autopsy. 

And it’s sad because nine months before Mr. Todd died, Miss Brenda died, and Miss Wendy went to another Winn-Dixie. It’s sad and I had expected Trinity to tell me if somebody else died (unprompted), but she didn’t. When I went to Winn-Dixie I didn’t see pictures. I must’ve missed when they had them up.

Desiree told me they had them up. 

I asked Desiree and I asked Miss Leslie, because they were both at the service desk, and he did die the way I was told he did. He told his wife that he was going outside to do yardwork and she said, “it’s too hot. You can’t do that,” but when Mr. Todd, his mind on something he did it regardless of the consequences-and it caused this man to die at 56 years old. 

It is genuinely just upsetting. We are used to heat in south Louisiana but this is insane. It’s humid. It’s so so hot. It hasn’t rained in a couple of weeks- a month maybe. That’s unusual for this area. Highly, highly unusual. 

I joke and say we’re in the middle of a drought  because there’s been so little rain compared to what we normally get. I used to say we’re in the middle of a drought when there was a week without rain because of how close we are to the gulf to Lake Pontchartrain. But now it’s hot heat is killing people and I’ve spent the past two months recovering from a minor procedure and the heat hasn’t helped. 

It’s so hot that it’s even hot inside with the air conditioning. It’s hot driving in my mom‘s car because I still don’t have one because I can’t work enough to save up money to buy a used one. I hate my job and I hate how hot it is. I used to say that I thrive in 80°F weather- and all that’s true, but 90 is just far too much and we’re stuck in the hundreds.

-Locket