A benevolent act amongst vegetables

Today the woman at the farmers market gave me my vegetables for half off.

I wonder if she noticed how swollen my eyes were and remembered a time when hers were too. I had showered and put on some makeup to even out my complexion from crying all evening and morning, but I couldn't get rid of the puffy eyes so easily.

I was a little startled when she rattled off the total for my potatoes, onions, and carrots.

"Thirty-seven fifty" she said.

"What was that?" I leaned in.

"Thirty-seven fifty"

I handed her my card and sighed. She began relating to my sigh on how the price of everything is going up. I began to bag my vegetables while she held my card. I noticed I had accidentally handed her two bags of onions after forgetting to put back the ones I decided against.

"Oh my, I meant to put these back" I said. She rattled off the new total.

"Ok thirty-two fifty."

I finished bagging my things and started walking away.

"Mam!"

I returned to her hastily.

"Yes?" She shows me the screen that says my card declined $15.34 of the purchase.

"Fuck" I said.

I had forgotten to virtually deposit my check this morning. Yesterday, I worked extra hours to make some more money, and I also used this opportunity to pick-up my check, since I wouldn't normally be receiving it until Tuesday. Tuesday is when my car insurance renews, and unless I deposited this check there would not be enough money in the account.

Turns out there was also not enough money in the account for these vegetables. Fuck.

All of these thoughts hit me at once, and I'm sweaty, defeated, and frozen in that spot. I begin to pull the vegetables from my tote bag and lay them on the table.

"Just take them and give me the money next week" she says.

I pause.

"Can I give you my name and phone number?" I say.

"No, that's ok. Sixteen dollars next time."

The lady next to me chimes in "That's very nice of you." I agree.

"Ok," I say with a soft seriousness in my voice, so as not to disturb this fragile act of humaneness, "I will see you here next Sunday."

I walk away with my tote bag of vegetables and think of how the rest of my day would have gone had I not gone back to the same booth I normally go to and shown my face to the woman who always checked me out. Does she remember me? Or is this just the result of a very kind woman who noticed the hesitation in my demeanor when trying to buy my food for the week.

I will go back next week. I will buy the same vegetables again, and I will pay her the sixteen dollars extra that I owe her. But I cannot pay her back for the moment she showed me understanding. That is priceless.

Author's Note:

Update! This was a true story, pretty much down to the exact words said in conversation. I went back to the sunday farmers market today and talked to the lady again. I paid her the $16+ bought some more veggies! I told her about my piece and how a lot of people were moved by what she did, and she told me she does it very often. Especially when she did smaller markets and only took cash. While she says most of the time people are very trustworthy and reliable, there was once a customer who was given $80 of produce and never came back to pay for it. So, to know that this vendor experienced that and still likes to give people the benefit of the doubt is your sign that there is hope and humanity left in the world, and for the most part, people are inherently good. Mahalo