“The cashier’s expression stopped me from asking the obvious”

Earn points

Dear Diary:

I was standing in line at a Panera Bread store in Queens. A woman in front of me took out her phone and started taking pictures of receipts left on the counter by other customers.

The cashier’s expression saved me from having to ask the obvious.

“When I get home,” the woman explained, “I add the receipt numbers to my Panera account and earn points.”

“Not many,” she added, “but why let them go to waste?”

I was reminded of how, growing up in Rego Park in the 1950s, I would search the gutters for discarded Bazooka gum strips and Raleigh cigarette coupons, both of which were redeemable for merchandise. And because I’m responsible for my mother’s S&H Green Stamps books, I never leave stray stamps on the floor at the A&P.

Once the woman had her photos, she got a large cup of hazelnut coffee and I stepped forward to place my order.

The cashier asked for my rewards number. I said I didn’t have one.

“But,” I added, “I think I know someone who will appreciate my receipt.”

–James Penha

Late summer storm

Dear Diary:

It was almost 6pm on a drizzly September afternoon. The wind picked up—a sign of even heavier rain—and many people on the streets of the Upper East Side hurried home.

I stood under an awning waiting for the worst of the rain to pass. I watched an older man in a suit look up from his phone and see a toddler making funny faces at passersby through the window of a yellow taxi stopped at a traffic light.

The man put the phone in his shirt pocket, stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes to match the child’s funny face.

The child grinned through the window and waved at the man as the taxi drove away.

The man smiled and giggled before crossing the street.

I heard a clap of thunder and the beginning of a flood at the end of summer. The streets were now empty.

–Olivia Bensimon

In sync

Dear Diary:

I was in the Times Square subway station, walking from the 7 train to the A, C, and E lines. It was the evening rush hour and hordes of people were rushing to escape Midtown and head to uptown, downtown, or New Jersey.

I was at full speed when I heard the distant notes of the Habanera from Bizet’s “Carmen”. Soon a woman started singing along to the music, and I started saying the words.

By the time I got to her, we were completely in sync, singing “l’amour est enfant de bohème…”

As I passed her, she caught my eye and smiled. I jumped up the A with the spring of a toreador in my step.

— Nicholas Gerard

Shoe shopping

Dear Diary:

Frustrated by an endless search for apartments, I stopped at a shoe store on the Upper West Side for distraction.

As I sat down, a nearby woman turned to me.

“Do these shoes look old to me?” she asked calmly.

Of course not, I said. They look great on you.

She said she lived on the Upper East Side but used to come to the store with her late husband.

She asked where I lived. I mentioned that my lease had not been renewed due to what I perceived as corporate greed and that I had been living in a hotel for the past two months.

She said her building’s management company had three rental units. I took the name of the company and thanked her.

After she left the store, I looked at the shoes she had tried on. I asked for a pair in my size. They were perfect.

When I got back to the hotel an hour later, I looked up the management company online and saw no available listings. I sent a note anyway, expressing my interest and explaining what I was looking for in a new place.

Two days later I received a response about a brand new ad. Two days later I saw the place.

“I’ll take it!” I said after about five minutes.

–Joan Hershey

Freeze

Dear Diary:

It was a few years ago and Manhattan was in the middle of a week-long deep freeze.

Although temperatures were in the single digits, there had been no precipitation, meaning no freezing rain to keep me off my bike. Just wrap up in layers, a warm hat to cover my ears and a good pair of gloves and I was good to go. Midwesterners know how to handle the cold.

I rode to the post office just as a fellow hard soul untied his bike from the post I was planning to use to lock mine. We looked at each other.

“Minnesota,” he shouted.

“Michigan,” I replied, and then he continued on his way.

– Michael A. Kaplan

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee