I was standing in the checkout line at my local desi store and there was a lady in front of me. She was middle aged, short and stout with dark, curly hair, dressed in a blue business suit and seemed to be in a real hurry.
“Give me four samosas,” she told the young girl checking her out.
“Sure aunty,” she replied and ducked behind the counter and put four samosas in a brown paper bag and handed it over to the lady.
The lady pulled out her credit card and gave it to the girl.
“Sorry aunty, minimum purchase for credit card is ten dollars,” she said.
The lady seemed to find this incredulous and with hands waving Indian aunty style she protested, saying she was in a hurry and that she was a regular customer and the rule was so stupid.
“Sorry aunty,” the girl said shrugging her shoulders.
The lady turned around and stormed to the back of the store to pick up something else to pad her order.
The girl asked me to step forward to checkout. I placed my groceries on the counter.
“Do you have any samosas? “I asked the girl, “May I have four.”
“Let me check ,” she said and leaned under the counter and then popped back up, “I only have two.”
“Never mind then,” I said and gathered the bags she had packed and drove off.
When I got home and started to unpack, I noticed a brown paper bag with oil stains on it and when I looked inside, there were four samosas in it.
I can only imagine the scene that must have taken place after I left.
The furious aunty returning back to the counter and dumping her frozen kulfi or box of nan khatai or whatever on the counter.
“There, this will be more than enough now!” she must have said.
And the girl would have looked around for the samosas and not finding them may have asked the lady if she knew where they were. And the lady would have scowled at her and the scared girl would have tried to give her four new samosas but realizing that there were only two left , she’d have to tell the lady that she didn’t have four anymore and the lady would have yelled how she could not understand how the samosas that she had left on the counter had disappeared into thin air, but then must have said, “Fine, give me the two.” But then the order would no longer have been over ten dollars any more and the girl would have then considered telling the lady to go back to pad her order again but better sense would have prevailed and she’d have just quietly charged the lady’s credit card, the $7.99 or whatever it ended it up being and the lady throwing up her hands in frustration would have exclaimed, “Really, really, it’s okay now!”
I don’t know who the lady is and I doubt I’ll ever run into her again but I wanted to go on record saying I am sorry for the part I played in ruining her evening and wanted to thank her for the samosas, and to wish her the best for the new year.
And of course a Happy New Year to all of you as well. May you too be showered with free samosas in the coming year.