A Shook Snapshot

At the shook today, I headed to our usual fruit stand and loaded up on a week's supply of apples and a pomegranate.

I thrust out my arm holding my bag of loot for the proprietor to weigh several times before he took my bag over the many other hands holding out bags of fruit. The proprietor was busily weighing the bags, taking money, tossing coins into a wooden box and handing back change at lightning speed. All the while, dangling precariously between his two lips was a long cigarette seemingly never touched by his busy hands.

He weighed my fruit.
"Mumble mumble mumble" he said gruffly through his mostly closed mouth. "Ma?" I replied.

"Shmoneh ve hetzi" he tried again more loudly, the cigarette dancing madly, the long ash weaving treacherously looking as if at any moment it would end up amongst the great pile of bananas before him.

I fished the required coins out of my pocket and held them out. All the while he was weighing yet another customer's fruit. Spying my handful of coins, he eagerly tried to take them and knocked my hand in the process. Ten Agarot dropped neatly with a little plop into his cup of coffee resting on the table.

Without a word, he just waved me away, and he and his cigarette turned to grab another's outstretched bag of fruit.

I bet he finished the cup of coffee.