'Instead of Paying, He Disappeared...'

Last week, I went to the local supermarket. To be honest, such an outing is quite rare for me, but what wouldn't one do for domestic harmony. My wife asked me to go, so I went. I hunted down all the items on the list, loaded them into the cart, and took my place on line for the checkout.

The line was typical for a Monday afternoon at a fairly large neighborhood store with just one cashier. There were two people with fully loaded carts ahead of me, plus one man with only two items. I waited patiently as the cashier scanned the items and the customers packed everything into their bags.

Around ten minutes passed, and just as the cashier finished with the first two people on line, another cashier arrived and the first one went off for a break. At that moment, something interesting happened. The man standing in front of me, the one with just two items who was next in line, turned around and headed back into the store.

As I unloaded the contents of my shopping cart onto the conveyor belt, I glanced back to see what the man was doing. I noticed him replace his two items on the store’s shelves and then leave, empty-handed. By now I was pretty curious and I hurried to pay so I could catch him outside.

I was in luck; he was still there. In fact, he seemed to be waiting for something, or someone. Since I know him slightly—we used to attend the same Torah class—I didn’t hesitate too much before approaching him.

“I wonder if you remember me?” I asked. “We used to attend Rabbi Cohen’s class—quite a few years ago, admittedly.”

“I think I recall you,” he said, smiling. “How are you doing?”

“Baruch Hashem, excellent. And... if that’s okay, I wonder if you could tell me something? I happened to notice that you gave up your place in the line for the checkout. Would you mind telling me why?”

The man smiled again and said: “Oh, it's nothing.”

I wasn’t so easily deterred. “I just have a feeling that there’s a lesson here for me to learn from. Would you mind sharing it with me? Does it have something to do with the cashier?”

The man shrugged. “Well, okay. And yes, it does have something to do with the cashier. I don’t know if you noticed, but I only had two items in my cart—diapers and formula milk. I was about to place them on the conveyor belt when I saw who the cashier was—the one who replaced the first one. I happen to know that she’s been married for several years but hasn’t yet been blessed with children. I was worried that when she saw what I was buying, she’d feel terrible that she doesn’t need those things. If I had a whole cart full of items, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, maybe she wouldn’t notice. But because it was just those two things, it would be so much more obvious. So I decided to replace the items and now I’m just waiting for another checkout to open, or for the regular cashier to return. It’s not a big deal.”

Not a big deal? I was taken aback. Few of us would be willing to “waste” precious time just in case someone’s feelings might be hurt. But this man really had his priorities right.