Checking out

I was standing on line at the Duane Reade/Walgreens on 57th St. and 6th Avenue during lunchtime. An expensive Business Suit reeking of finance was ready to check out his purchases with the cashier, a 60-something Asian male with a bowl haircut.

“Hey,” said the Suit to the cashier, brandishing a Visa card. “Someone left their credit card! Look! She’s leaving the store. Go stop her and give her the card!”

As the cashier took off, the Suit remained immobile, reveling in save-the-day mode, and overseeing as the poor cashier abandoned his post and sprinted to the front door, frantically semaphore-ing the plastic card and pleading, “Excuse me! Excuse me!”

The woman stopped abruptly (for the record, she resembled Susie Essman from Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiam), her face a frozen rictus of Who the hell and why are you chasing after me, you maniac? One of her feet was already planted on the sidewalk.

“You forget your card? You forget your card?” the desperate cashier called out.

A mere glance at the neon-blue color of the small plastic rectangle revealed the answer. “No!” she rasped. “That’s not my card!” She stormed out.

The cashier trotted dutifully back to his post.

The Suit would not be dissuaded from his humanitarian mission. “Who was your last customer?” he demanded.

“Someone else,” said the cashier.

 

 

Tags: lunchtime stories, New York Life, new york stories, work