Saturday was a great day. Jinny and I drove to Manhattan Beach to meet a long lost relative. The last time we saw Martha was a long, long time and the little girl we saw last has blossom into a beautiful lady.
Our lunch (at no other place than an eatery called:……”Martha’s Place”) was full of recounting of old memories and when the staff of the restaurant started piling the chairs on the tables, we quickly understood the subtle hint that almost four O’clock was considered, in that part of the country, as being outside of the conventional lunch hour.
After good and strong embraces and multi promises and commitment that the next time would not be counted in multiple decades, we went our separate ways; Martha to her host place and us back home by the way of Pacific Coast Highway.
Soon, the lunch started indicating a serious difference of opinion with my digestive system, and by the time we reached Newport Beach I was rumbling like an old truck and not comfortable at all. I pulled up to a convenience store and made a straight line for a lone mini-bottle of Pepto Bismol that looked at the time like the incarnation of Paradise on hearth. I plopped my money in front of the clerk who after the customary fiddling with scanner and cash register promptly gave me my change. As I was putting my change back in my wallet I realized that the guy had given me the change of a $10.00 and I remembered going to the ATM this morning and getting a brand spanking new $20.00 who joined a couple of single or three. The guy just tried to stiff me of ten bucks! I promptly called the guy on it, he denied the fact, a line started building up behind me, the clerk got frustrated and screwed-up the change of the customer behind me, leading him to join my camp! Tension was building. Then Jinny, who had been wondering what took so long, walked in and after a quick appraisal of the situation joined, nay! Took over the protest. So needless to say the clerk was now way out of his league and finally caved in, gave me back the extra Ten. With the Warrior Queen at my side I walked out of the store vindicated, while the aforementioned Warrior Queen was expressing in no uncertain term her strong denunciation of the questionable ethics of convenience store, their staff and the clerk of the particular one we came out from in particular.
As I sat behind the wheel of the car, I noticed a crumbled paper bag in the driver’s door pocket. The bag had contained two ham and cheese croissants that I had bought this morning in our way in. And I now remembered paying for those croissants and two drinks……with my brand new $20.00 Bill. The need for the Pepto Bismol was now imperative and after ravaging the mini-bottle I walked back to the store. I am pretty sure that when he saw me at the counter the clerk must have tried frenetically to remember where the panic button was located and I am also sure have wished with all his heart that he could have been an active and side packing member of the National Rifle Association.
I meekly apologized for my mistake and the clerk turned out to be a gentleman about it.
No doubt, that young man is a better man than me.
So last Sunday we got reunited with a long lost relative and I discovered a solid chunk of evil in my soul. May I keep the first one a long time and earn the wisdom to loose the second.
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