The little girl waited for the clerk to total her purchases.
"Five seventy-five," he announced.
She was not pleased. She rummaged through the items separating them into three groups, and asked for the total of each.
The clerk was annoyed and the customers on the growing line were beginning to grumble with impatience. Nevertheless, he accommodated the child. He gave her three separate totals.
"I don't want these," she said peremptorily sweeping one set aside. "I'll take these two." She pointed as she crumpled a set of bills in her hand.
There still was not enough to pay for the goods.
"What can I leave out," she said, to no one in particular--her computation skills seemed not quite up to the mathematics.
A final figure was arrived at with the grudging assistance of the clerk, but the end was not quite yet.
"I need a soda," said the little urchin, as she ran behind the counter and rummaged for a particular flavor.
"You can get a cold one over there," said the clerk, now thoroughly acclimated to the inevitable, though perhaps somewhat amused or charmed.
I turned in impatience to the lady behind me, and said:
:I've never met one of these little creatures I can abide even when they are less visible."
"You don't like children?" came the defensive reply.
"I have full confidence they'll grow up like the rest of us, and I'm not convinced I like grown ups any better." The woman bridled.
"Do you have children?" asked the defensive lady.
"Seven," I replied.
"Do you like them," she prodded.
"Perhaps one of them," I replied, but she's on trial perpetually. If you want my opinion, the British of Charles Dickens' time had the right idea; "Ask for MORE and get the flat of a properly applied boot--and a couple of 'Bah Humbugs' for emphasis.
My peripheral vision caught a very alert little girl listening carefully. Her eyes were wide open, inquisitive, not angry or judgmental, only curious.
"Not this little girl," I hastened to proclaim. "She is assertive, intelligent, knows what she wants or does not. Besides she is pretty," I added as a palliative.
"I happen to be a boy," the injured one announced as he gathered his purchases and departed.
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