I spent the late afternoon today falling into interesting conversation after interesting conversation with people at the market. I met three Temple students who often hang out in Center Court, got an opportunity to hear the scoop on the new Foster’s store at 4th and Market from one of employees in the Market store and chatted with a young woman who recently moved to the area from San Francisco with her boyfriend. She described the move as a “geographic compromise” and is finding settling into Philly a bit challenging.

It was getting close to 6 pm as I wrapped up the last conversation in order to go home, but I’ve been dreaming of a green bean, tomato and basil salad, so with those last few minutes before closing, I swung through OK Lee’s produce stall. I picked up the beans and the basil (I already had the tomatoes) as well as a pineapple (which had been denuded of its leafy headdress) and a container of cut up melon.

The man at the west cash register quickly rung up my purchases, pressed total and started mumbling under his breath when the amount due was $6.66. The one thing I could clearly pick out was, “Customers don’t like that number.” He proceeded to subtract $.01 from the total, so that it no longer showed the numerical sign of the devil. He visibly relaxed when the total was altered, turned to me smiling and accepted my money. I handed him a small stack of $1 bills along with a few quarters. I tried to give him the extra penny that he had subtracted, but he refused, as if trying to deny that the screen had ever shown that offensive number.