A Deal is a Deal

I decided, as my New Year’s resolution, that I would both no longer be taken advantage of, and I would collect money for our local food bank. I’ve been doing both.

It’s not uncommon for short ladies to wait for a taller person such as myself to get them something from the top shelf in the supermarket. I can tell the look as soon as I turn down the aisle.

“Would you mind?” they begin. 

And now I still do it, but I charge a nickel and tell them it goes to charity. 

“To feed the hungry,” I say, and show them a Food Pantry brochure I carry with me. 

If I’m downtown and someone is waiting for me to pull out of my parking space, I’ll walk over and tell them that I wasn’t planning to leave yet but if they want to donate a quarter to charity, I’ll pull right out. To feed the hungry, I tell them.

There’s more — and while I’m keeping my resolution in this small town of five thousand people it’s begun to negatively affect my real estate business.
I can’t wait for New Year’s so I can change this dumb resolution and get back to normal.

End the year strongly with more amazing fiction from the contributors and staff at the MockingOwl Roost.

• My World
• Gertrude and Alice Go on Holiday
• Murderer’s Creek
• A Sighting
• Order Up
• In the Mediterranean at Midnight

Paul Beckman

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Paul Beckman’s latest flash collection, Kiss Kiss (Truth Serum Press) was a finalist for the 2019 Indie Book Awards. Some of his stories appeared in Necessary Fiction, Litro, Pank, Playboy, WINK, The Wax Paper, and Monkey. He was nominated for 2021 Best of the Web and selected for Best Microfiction 2022. Paul curates the monthly Fbomb flash fiction reading series now entering its seventh year (via Zoom).

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