You may have already seen this story on social media today under a very different headline. It's going viral as a "People of Wal-Mart" moment, meant to make us laugh at the misfortune of others.
A woman was arrested after riding a motorized cart through a Florida Wal-Mart while eating sushi and drinking wine. LOL! Florida? It figures. Just another day at Wal-Mart, am I right?
Not quite.
Josseleen Lopez, 25, was arrested for stealing $32.36 of food and beverages from the store. She didn't take anything out of the store, but said that she ate as much as she could while there because she was hungry. Lopez also told police she was homeless.
The story gets even less funny from there. Lopez had three empty syringes on her when she was arrested, which she said she used to inject meth before she went to the store.
Drug addicted, homeless, and hungry don't add up to hilarity. Neither does the system that arrested this woman for stealing $32 worth of food in a country that throws away 263 millions pounds of food every day –– or a news cycle that chews up and spits out the needy for clicks and likes.
The real story is our country's exploding rates of homelessness and how little we do to help our neediest citizens. But there's absolutely nothing click-bait worthy or viral about that.
