How Many Fingers Make a Grape?

So the other morning I went to my class at the gym, the hour long class which really kicks my rear, without having eaten breakfast first. I had overslept and didn't want to miss the class so I just went on figuring I would eat afterward.

I made it through class, even though I'm convinced our instructor was trying to kill us that day, and decided I'd make a quick stop in Kroger on the way home since its on the way. About the time I got into the store, I knew I'd made a bad decision. My blood sugar was dropping and I was feeling really dizzy and weird. I was standing in the produce section, so out of complete necessity I grabbed a bunch of grapes and put them in my cart. I immediately started eating them as I walked. I had to get rid of that awful feeling and I wasn't about to leave and come back later. "Just hurry," I thought. Halfway through the store, though, it occurs to me that I'm eating these grapes and I haven't paid for them. Even worse, they charge by weight for the grapes and I've INHALED them!! Oh. My. Goodness. I'm stealing grapes.

I never intended to not pay for them. I just needed sugar fast and that's all I was thinking.

I got to the self checkout line and proceeded. I scanned the items in my basket and then I put my hand on the little glass piece where I would normally have weighed the grapes and began to press down. In my head, my plan was to pretend that my hand was the bunch of grapes and I was going to try to put enough weight on the scanner to make it register $3, a price I had already determined was more than what I actually owed for the grapes.

As I'm standing there pressing my hand down, I hear the attendants voice behind me. The attendant is a young man probably 23 or 24. He's the 'against the establishment' kind of guy with the tatoos and piercings and black hair that we all find in places like Kroger--you know him. The one that reminds us all of the irony that the guy like him works in a place like Kroger?

Him (awkwardly): Umm...Ma'am? What are we trying to do here?
Me (still a little out of sorts from the blood sugar plunge): I'm trying to pay for grapes.
**(He sees no grapes, of course. He only sees a glazed-eyed chic trying to put weight on the scanner.)
Him: Did you want to buy grapes?
Me: Yes, that's what I'm trying to do.
Him (getting a little nervous, now): Ma'am, do you see grapes?
Me: No, I don't see grapes! I'm trying to pay for what the grapes would've cost.
**(You and I both know that I wasn't making sense to him, but I was making perfect sense to myself in the moment. I even had the nerve to get irritated with him.)
Him (talking to me now like I'm an elementary child): Okay, then. If there were grapes there, how much do you think they would cost?
Me: Three dollars. I think that's more than fair.
Him: How about if I go over to my station and just add $3 to your bill? Would that make us even?
Me: Well, I think that's for you to decide ultimately, but I would think it would be okay.
Him: I think that's more than fair. (Here's his jab...) If you think the grapes that aren't there are worth $3 and if you insist on paying for them, then I think it's more than fair. If I do that, will you stop trying to scan your hand?
Me: Okay, then. Fine.

And, now, I probably live on in his stories as 'the freak who was trying to see how much her left hand was worth!!!'

But, I didn't steal the grapes.

-b