There we were, an older man and his 19-year-old son shopping at Star Market on Matthew Auburn Street in Watertown. The son pushing the cart, the father roaring under his breath, and surveying all the merchandise coming down the porch. The young man realizes that he is surrounded by a cornucopia of products.
This was my dad and I on our second day in the US after several years of living abroad. We slowly walked buckets filling our cart with food to our new home as we started a new chapter in our lives. . I had recently been admitted to college and my brother had entered his senior year in High School and we were all living in two rooms in Watertown. This was very new to us. A few years ago my father lived in a residential hotel boarding.
The food we bought was different. If we buy something, it is usually in the market place, called “soukh”, where the goods are displayed on tables and where the price is always negotiable. We don’t talk much, he was taking something off the shelf and putting it in the cart after makes eye contact. See me if I agree. We made our way to the opposite side, where the father looked at the various cuts of meat and looked at me as if to say “What have we come?”. In Armenia, I proposed to us some chopped meats and a whole chicken. He nodded. We filled the cart with fruits and vegetables and cheese, rice and tea and walked on board to check out.
The adultera on board was friendly and smiling and efficient and in no time everything sounded. She turned pleasantly to her father and said with a bright smile:
“Forty-seven dollars and 14 hundred sir.” To which my father, while he was waiting, answered, “Will I give you twenty-five?”
The cashier’s reaction was a combination of disbelief and astonishment, and my father’s laugh was a big impish laugh as he reached into his pocket to retrieve the coin. The unfortunate girl could only muster a response: “No, sir, forty-seven, sixteen…um, please.” The servants and patrons around us stopped what they were doing and watched the scene unfold, some laughing, some puzzled.
I couldn’t laugh, but I had to intervene. And he turned to the treasurer and said, “Morning another desire, I will take care of this.” I turned to my father who was counting the cash to pay for the groceries and I said “C’mon dad, we’re not in the soukh, we have to put the amount in the records.”
“You can’t blame a man for asking. Have you got fourteen cents?”
From that day on, every time we went shopping at Market Star, we were greeted with a smile and a hello from the staff and even tempted by some customers who had heard of my father’s vagabonds. I’m sure pretty didn’t try the same joke again and I laugh every time I remember the offense. behold, he gave us the treasure, and the smile of joy on my father’s face had revealed the emotion of his joke.
