THE RICE STORY
Congratulations, you found an old story that I wrote when I was still in school. I guess you can call this an easter egg of sorts. Good job, now go do something productive with your life.
It was the Fourth of July and my mother was going to make chop suey that night for my cousin and myself.
“We need rice,” my mom said.
II’ll go in the store if Sally takes me there,” I said. Sally had long thick blond hair that looked like hay. She also had a deeper voice than most women did. She loved to drive so she jumped at the chance to drive me to the store.
We got into my mother’s red four door Tempo and went to Mega Foods to get the rice.
“Here is two dollars. Go in and get some rice,” Sally yelled over the sound of the radio as I walked through the hot parking lot.
As I entered the cool air conditioned store from the hot muggy outdoors, I felt a chill run down my spine.
The large grocery store was cool with a peculiar smell. With one sniff I could smell the produce mixed with the aroma of the air conditioners cool air.
I walked over to the computer aisle finder to find out which aisle rice would be in. I punched in the word rice and it said 2B.
All I could hear was the squeaking of my shoes as I went into the aisle to search for the rice. I finally found the rice, but I could not figure out which bag of rice to get. There were all different kinds of rice. There was white and brown rice, and all different name brands to choose from.
Then I saw it; a bag of Uncle Ben’s white rice for about roughly two dollars and some other bag for five dollars. I only had two dollars so I took the rice costing about two dollars.
I went to the front of the store to find an empty check out lane. I could not find one with less than three people in it. Finally I saw the express line and there was only one person in it.
I ran to the express line that had the middle age woman in it and she was ready to check out.
“Oh no, I forgot to get the hot fudge for my husband’s ice cream!” she exclaimed.
While she ran off to get her fudge, the check out person said he would wait on me.
“Is all of this yours?” he asked.
I was watching the woman running and I was not paying attention to him. “Yeah, it is,” I said absent mindedly.
He rand up all of the woman’s stuff and said, “That will be ten dollars and forty cents please.”
“Ten dollars for rice! What do you mean? It was only two dollars back there,” I yelled frantically.
“Isn’t all of this yours?” he asked.
I looked down and saw a five quart container of vanilla ice cream and some other groceries. None of them were mine.
“Wait a minute, those are my groceries. I’m paying for them!” The woman came running up to the checkout line with her hot fudge. She heaped it in a pile with the rest of her groceries.
Her groceries came to about ten dollars. She decided to write a check. Worse, she was writing an out of town check and she couldn’t find her driver’s license.
After ravaging through her purse for about ten minutes she finally found her driver’s license and paid for her food. Now it was my turn.
I had been in the store for about ten to fifteen minutes so far and all I had done was wait in line, I wished I had never volunteered to do this.
I took my bag of Uncle Ben’s white rice and laid it on the conveyer and the cashier rang it up.
“Hi, that will be two dollars and two cents please,” he said.
“I only have two dollars with me,” I said hoping that he would let me get by on the two pennies. He wouldn’t, he started complaining about if he let everybody get by on just two pennies, the store would never make any money.
I had to run out of the store all the way to the car and get two pennies in order to get my rice. When I left the store, the heat hit me, by the time I reached the car, I was in a sweat.
“I need two more pennies to buy the rice Sally,” I said while gasping for air.
“I just gave you two dollars, just how expensive is the rice in this store anyway?” she asked.
“Just give me the two pennies, that’s all I need,” I begged. She gave me the two pennies and I ran back into the store. When I got back in the store, I found out that more people were in my line.
“Excuse me, I was in this line. I need to be waited on,” I said.
“Sir, you will have to get in the back of the line and wait your turn,” he said.
I took my place in the back of the line. Oh no, he had taken my two dollars already. He had better remember that. There were three people in front of me, and they were all slow, check writing tourists. I finally reached the front of the line, for the second time I might add.
“Hi, that will be two dollars and two cents please,” he said once again.
“I was already in this line and I already paid you the two dollars. Here are the two pennies,” I said throwing the pennies onto the counter.
“Oh, that’s right, you were in here earlier, and you’re the one who ran out to get the two pennies. I’m sorry, here’s your receipt,” he said.
I grabbed my rice and left the store very disgusted and very hot from the Fourth of July weather.
When I got out of Mega Foods and reached the car I showed the rice to my cousin Sally. I had bought a five pound bag of Uncle Ben’s rice.
“Five pounds! What did you buy five pounds of rice for?” Sally asked me.
“It was only two dollars, I thought it was what you wanted, I thought it was cheap,” I said.
“I don’t know, we’ll see what your mom says,” she said.
When we got back to my house, my mom wanted to know why I had bought a five pound bag of rice.
“Why did you buy so much rice? We will never be able to eat all of this rice. Don’t you know that rice puffs up when it is cooked?” she asked me.
I didn’t know anything about rice, who did she think I was, the Frugal Gourmet or something?
Well, it was almost six at night and by then my mom was making the chop suey. I decided that it was a good time to go outside and light off some of my fireworks. By that time I had already forgot about the day that had just happened.