The last time I had cempedak fritters ( I named it jillfruit) was last October 2005, during a fasting month. Super88Market on South Bay Mall which I frequent doesn't carry cempedak, so last week after I finished my run on Charles I walked back to downtown and wandered around Chinatown looking for grocery stores.
I found one on Washington Street located on opposite site of Penang Restaurant. I've been to Penang Restaurant many times before, but I don't remember seeing this grocery store. I thought it was a Peking Restaurant or something.

How delighted I was when I saw a pile of raw cempedak in clear plastic packet in frozen section. After I pinched, sniffed and poked I picked one packet that looked most desirable.
I cut short my initial plan to look around the supermarket. I could almost taste the sweetness and chewiness of cempedak fritters on the tip of my tongue, not to mention the scent of cempedak flesh gurgled in hot oil. It was unbearable. I headed to the cashier register.
In front of me a tall girl in all black - micro mini skirt, fishnet tight, beautiful metal accessories on her wrists and fingers. She held a clear plastic bag of medium size of squids. She turned around and flashed a smile at me. I thought I was looking at Pink.
An elder Chinese woman ahead of Pink had a hard time with her EBT card. Either the money wasn't in yet, or she had spent all her food stamp or the welfare office had stopped giving her the money for some reasons. EBT card is like a debit card issued by Department of Transitional Assistance to its recipients. The recipients couldn't get a cash out of it or buy anything else except food.
The card was declined for the second attempt. The cashier snatched the receipt and handed it to the woman. I didn't understand a word she was saying, but it must be repeating what she told the woman for the first woman. It declined.
The elder woman pushed her EBT card toward the girl, raised her voice to the cashier, tapped her gnarled fingers hand on the machine.
The cashier raised her voice to match the woman's, grabbed the card, ran through the machine for the third time. Less than 45 seconds after the woman punched her pin number, the slip came out and the cashier pulled the slip and handed it to the woman with her EBT card. The elder woman refused to take the card from the girl. She pointed her forefinger into the girl's face, her voice was getting louder, screaming at the girl.
At this point I was hoping the elder woman would've not yelled at the cashier again because it wasn't the girl's fault.
But sometimes we, the human species do dumbest things when we are embarrassed. Ego is bigger than common sense.
The girl screamed back at her, threw the woman's EBT across the counter. If the look could kill, that woman would've turned into ashes.
"Ohh.........no, she dik 'ent." I said to no one in particular.
"Yes, she just did....," Pink turned around and made a did- you -see -that? face to me.
The older woman nor the rest of the women in the queue didn't seemed to be bothered by the young girl's attitudes. The woman picked up her EBT card, put it in her pocket book and walked toward exit door minus her grocery bags.
As I was waiting for my turn I wondered did that woman accepted an unacceptable behavior from the cashier because she did the same thing to the girl?
When I passed the fish section earlier I noticed another elder woman in sharp blue silk dress tried to get the men's attention who was gutting the fishes with: hey... hey ....Waved her manicured hand exasperately at the men. None of the men turned around.
Sometimes in a hurry we forget to be courtesy and respect the persons who serve us, sometimes we 'forget' to say thank you to a popcorn girl at the movie theater because she has an attitude. If she had an attitude, so what?
Sometimes, after we washed our hands at the public bathroom, we threw the paper towel in a trash in a hurry and missed it. When I picked up mine, a woman with me said, why bother, it's a cleaner job.
Do we only do good deeds because we are promised something good, something beautiful, something virgins in return after life? What if we aren't assured of anything, will we still do it just because?
Sometimes we get angry because somebody behind us accidentally bump into us didn't apologize. Five out of five times if you said, "Excuse me," with a dazzling smile, the act alone could threw them off the orbit. And they would say, "Sorry, it's my fault."
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