It was around 10 o'clock on one Friday morning. The grocery store was located in a quiet neighborhood in Los Altos, where half of the residents were retirees. At this time of a day, normally the grocery shoppers were either elders or housewives. The man who drew my attention was around his early forties, in a blue shirt, khakis pants and a pair of nice and shining leather shoes. He did not use a shopping cart but carried a store basket.

The fruit and vegetable section was at the right hand side of the store's front door, where most shoppers started their shopping. He rambled around the store to seek his target. In his basket there were already a bunch of banana with the frozen food on the top. He must have come back to the fruit and vegetable section for the second time.

He walked around and then stopped to look closely at each kind of vegetables and fruits as if he had never acquainted them. He stopped in front of broccoli crowns, pulled out a plastic bag, ready for action. But he seemed hesitant to put anything in the bag. Then he walked toward the potatoes, gazed at the pile of potatoes for a moment with the plastic bag grabbed in the hand. No potato, he shook his head. He walked to the front of the kiwi and finally put some into the plastic bag. Before that he was just comparing kiwi and persimmon. Kiwi was on sale this week - four for one dollar; persimmon was $1.5 each.

During the process of making decision, he dropped two persimmons to the floor by accident. With blushing face, he picked up the dropped persimmons back to the fruit booth quickly. Finally six kiwis were put in the bag. He held the plastic bag high in the air and watched the bag for a few seconds, then took two kiwis out of the bag.

It took long for him to make every shopping decision. When he was ready to check out, it was almost 11 o'clock. At the cashier's, he put all his groceries on the rail, including a carton of milk with vitamin D which was $2.19 on sale, two red packages of chicken flavor microwave food, a bunch of bananas, a bag of mini bagels, two canned tuna, three cup noodles, a package of blended salad vegetable, a bag of kiwis and a bag of mangoes.

"Oh, sorry, I change my mind, I don't want the kiwis," said he.

"That's ok," smiling the clerk.

"The total is sixteen thirty-eight. How do you like to pay it?"

"Cash." He took a twenty-dollar bill out of the pocket purse.

"Here is the change of three sixty-two. Have a nice day."

"Thank you." He put the coins into the side pocket of the pants and the three dollars into the pocket purse.