As my Grandma Binenbaum used to say, “Thanks God!” Now that my Thanksgiving shopping is done, I say Amen!

At Zabar’s, things were particularly zoo-like.

In the narrow aisle between the deli counter and refrigerator case of prepared soups, a mother decided that two days before Thanksgiving–customers were three deep at the deli counter — was the perfect time to to park her young daughter in the middle of the aisle and give her a math lesson. “What’s this number?” she screeched at the kid,
waving the ticket she had just ripped from the dispenser.”What ticket?”, asked the kid.
“This one,” she said, waving the shred of pink paper again.
“How much is half of this?” she
asked, pressing on. “What is this a school?” a bemused
fellow-customer asked, rolling his eyes .

An elderly gentleman
buying smoked fish said to his counterman: “When I was a child, my mother
would buy smoked mackerel.” He paused. The counterman looked up. “That was
BP,” he chortled, waving his hand in the air. “What I mean is BMP, Before
Mercury Pollution,” he explained, flicking a piece of lox onto his
outstretched tongue.

“Someone once offered me $20 for my place in
line,” the woman standing next to me at the appetizing counter, said.”Really?” I responded,
to be polite.
“Yeah, he was in a hurry and people were three deep. I had waited 40
minutes. For $20 it wasn’t worth it.”
The counterman jumped in: “It must have been a holiday,
Yom Kippur.”
“Why is everybody buying lox?,” I asked. “It’s
Thanksgiving.” “Not here,” said the counterman
“What was your price?” I asked, turning back to the
woman. “For $50 I would have given him my spot,
but for $20, no way.”

Thanks God she had her price.

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