"$62.26 — a palindrome!" the clerk said to me when she finished ringing up my grocery bill. I did a double-take, then smiled back at her. When you're standing in line to check out, you don't expect to get learned commentary from the person who's doing the bar-code scanning. Maybe she was a bored college kid, earning some money between classes? Or a secret sophisticate, slumming to gather material for her next essay of social commentary, whose disguise momentarily slipped? Or was she a modern-day Buddha, working toward enlightenment via one of the most blatant yet invisible service tasks in our economy?

Whatever the reason(s), she was clearly happy and engaged in what she was doing — and the feeling was contagious!

(see also UnseenUniversity (7 Aug 1999), OverQualified (4 Mar 2004), ...)

TopicPersonalHistory - TopicLife - 2005-03-02

(correlates: TruckNumber, LookingBack, ParamilitaryOrganization, ...)