David Stalling

I've always been a little crazy. Maybe it's because I served in a Marine Corps Force Recon unit. Maybe it's because I spent most of my life hiding, suppressing, and denying the fact that I am gay. Maybe it's just because I'm Dave.

My friends certainly think so.
"That's just Dave," a lot of them say. "It's what Dave does."

I'm the guy who runs out of gas. The guy who forgets his wallet. The guy who somehow ends up barefoot in places where shoes are apparently required. My son once told me that hanging out with me was like living inside a Seinfeld episode.

He's not wrong.

Yet somehow I've managed to build a pretty good life. I've become a successful writer. I've led wildlife conservation organizations. I've become a popular public speaker on grizzlies, wolves, and other wildlife. I've met with senators and members of Congress. I've testified before the U.S. Senate about climate change and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

People know I'm a little crazy, and mostly they laugh with me.

Lately, though, something feels different.

Maybe the world has changed. Maybe people have become less patient. Less willing to see the human being standing in front of them. Maybe I'm becoming more crazy. I don't know. But something feels different.

I also have PTSD.

People are quick to thank veterans for their service. They're much less interested in dealing with what that service sometimes costs. What it can do to a person's mental health.
Sometimes it feels like this:

"Thank you for your service. Now go away."

The other day I was driving home. No, I didn't put on shoes.
It's summertime. I honestly didn't think about it. I spend half my summers barefoot. Always have. Then I did what Dave does. I ran out of gas. (Of course I did.) Then I realized I didn't have my wallet. (Of course I didn't.) When I reached for my phone, the battery had died. (Of course it did.)

So there I was.
No gas.
No money.
No phone.
No shoes.

Just another day in the life of Dave.

I decided the first priority was getting my phone charged so I could call someone for help.
I walked across the street to the gas station connected to the nearby grocery store, Yolks (formally a Safeway). Before I even went inside, I stood in the doorway and called out,

"Sir, I know I'm not supposed to come in without shoes, but I'm in a real jam."

The employee couldn't have been kinder.

He listened.
He understood.
He had empathy.
He wanted to help.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a phone charger. He suggested I try the grocery store.

So I crossed the parking lot barefoot. By the time I got there, the hot asphalt had burned the bottoms of my feet.

I felt like an idiot.

Inside, another employee listened while I explained that I knew I shouldn't be in the store barefoot but I was in a real bind and just needed to charge my phone long enough to call for help.

He was incredibly kind.

He found a charger and even let me sit near the entrance while my phone charged.

Then the manager walked over. His name is Rich Thornock.
Before I could explain anything, he told me to leave.

I tried.

"Sir, I'm in a jam..."

"I don't care. Rules are rules. Out!”

"I'm a Marine Corps veteran..."

"I don't care. Rules are rules. Out!”

"One of your employees was kind enough to..."

"I don't care. Rules are rules. Out!”

Over and over.

He wouldn't let me finish a sentence. He wouldn’t let me say a word. Nothing mattered but the rules.

At one point I even joked,
"I suppose that's why they call them rules... because they're rules?"

He didn’t think I was funny.

I even offered to step outside and explain my situation there. I wasn't asking him to ignore the store's policy. I knew I wasn't supposed to be barefoot inside. I simply wanted thirty seconds to explain why I was there.

He wouldn't hear it.

All he kept saying was,
"Rules are rules."

There's something I've experienced before that I call the Insanity Cycle, or Looney Loop.

Someone assumes you're unstable. You try harder to explain yourself. The harder you try to explain, the more unstable you appear. You become frustrated. Now they think you're really unstable. Eventually you become angry. Now you've confirmed exactly what they believed in the first place. Round and round it goes. Eventually you start wondering if maybe you are unstable.

I was exhausted.
My feet were burned.
I had no gas.
No money.
No phone.
I wasn't asking for money.
I wasn't asking for special treatment.
I was asking another human being for help.
Instead, all I got was,
"Rules are rules."

Someone later told me the store is near the homeless shelter and store employees deal with people experiencing mental illness every day.

So what?
If the manager thought I was homeless, so what?
If he thought I had a mental illness, so what?
Is that a reason not to listen?
Is homelessness a crime?
Is mental illness?
Is desperation?

Because if that's the standard we've adopted, we're in deeper trouble than my dead phone, empty gas tank and shoeless feet.

Eventually Rich threatened to call the police. I told him to go ahead.

Yes, I got angry. But my anger didn't come first. It came after being given absolutely no opportunity to explain my situation.

I knew the rules.
I even knew that the rules are rules.
I wasn't asking him to pretend the rules didn't exist.
I wasn't asking him to let me shop barefoot.
I wasn't asking for special treatment.

I was asking him to listen.
For thirty seconds.
He wouldn't.

After a while it became obvious that he wasn't responding to me as a person anymore. I had become a problem to remove instead of a human being standing in front of him.

That was frustrating.
That was humiliating.
And yes, it made me angry.

By then my Marine Corps vocabulary had returned in full force. I told him exactly what I thought of him. It included a lot of profanity.

I’m not proud of that. Losing my temper didn't help anything.
But pretending it came out of nowhere wouldn't be honest either.

The police arrived cautiously. I don't blame them. But here's what happened next.

They listened.
They asked questions.
One officer smiled.
"What rank were you
In the Marine Corps?"
"Sergeant."
"I can see that," he said.

The police understood.
The police had empathy.
The police helped me.
They asked me to leave the property, which was perfectly fair.
Then they called the crisis response team.

Two wonderful women showed up.
They listened.
They understood.
They had empathy.
They helped me.
They gave me a gas card.
They got me back on the road.
They wished me well.

Imagine that. Human beings helping another human being.
That's all I'd been looking for.
This story isn't really about one grocery store manager. It's about a society that says it supports veterans, people with PTSD, people experiencing mental illness, and people in crisis—until those people actually show up.

We put "Support Our Veterans" magnets on our cars. We hold mental health awareness campaigns. We tell people to ask for help. Then, when someone actually needs help, we hide behind policies.

Rules matter. But compassion matters more. Rules exist to serve people. People were never meant to serve rules.

No one was asking Rich to abandon the store's policy.
He could have asked me to step outside while my phone continued charging.
He could have spent thirty seconds listening.
He could have found any number of ways to enforce the rules while still treating another human being with dignity.

Instead, the rule became more important than the person.

Maybe I am a little crazy. Maybe I always will be. But I believe the measure of a community isn't how it treats people who have everything together. It's how it treats the people who show up with burned feet, a dead phone, no wallet, no gas, and nowhere else to turn.

Because someday that person might be you.

And when that day comes, I hope you meet someone who understands that sometimes the most important rule isn't written in a policy manual. It's simply this:

Listen first.
Help if you can.
Remember the person standing in front of you is a fellow human being.

Show some understanding.
Show some empathy.
Show some kindness.