A toy for your children22
It was raining heavily and I entered a little Chinese store where they sell all kinds of things. The owners were an old man and woman from Shanghai, who spoke broken English.I was browsing and buying presents for some people. Then I stood on line to pay. Ahead of me were a few people.
A tall, young black man was standing by the register; his charge came to around $17. He handed the lady a bill and said very abruptly, “Keep the change.” Then he quickly left the store.
The lady looked at the bill and saw that it was only a ten-dollar bill, not a twenty-dollar bill, so she came from behind the counter and ran after him, shouting and screaming in Chinese. Her husband also ran after him. But the man had his car right outside, and he just jumped in and drove away.
Everybody felt very sad. When I came up to the cash register, my charge came to $93. I wanted to give the old woman $7 extra to make up for what the black man had done, but she did not want to take it.
I said, “But you are not charging me tax.”
She said, “Oh no, I can’t.”
I insisted and finally she took it. Then she pushed a little toy car across the counter and said, “This is for your children.”
So I was nice to her, and she was nice to me.
LS 113. 3 August 1985↩
