During this week’s trip to safeway for food shopping I was zoning out in the check out line since it was taking forever. The guy behind me complained and switched to another line. After a while I noticed the woman in front of me had crinkled dollar bills, tons of nickels, dimes and quarters spread out across the counter in front of her. The cashier and I recognized each other since I’m a regular, and the cashier was helping count the coins. Suddenly things came into focus and I realized the cashier had just unscanned some items to bring the woman’s total down. I looked. It was two jars of baby food. The woman searched again and again in her purse and suddenly pulled out another crinkled dollar. At the same time, the cashier asked the woman to reswipe her safeway card. After the new swipe, she got a new discount and it turned out she didn’t need the extra dollar after all. The woman suddenly choked up and said “thank you, I just want to feed my baby.” She was wiping away tears. Then she apologized to me and the cashier for taking up so much time. Suddenly she smiled, the cashier smiled, they both looked at me and I smiled right back and realized I was teary-eyed myself. We were all grinning madly. Just as quickly the moment passed. The woman wiped her eyes, got her groceries and left. I checked out as usual. But that short jolt of perspective was so vivid I can’t get it out of my head.
Praxtime by Nathan Taylor 