THE FRESH MARKET PATRON Kaushik Bagchi Albany, NY This story is an allegory of an alcoholic seeking or urged to seek rehabilitation; or, more generally, a sinner seeking validation or redemption. If you read it again with this in mind, you’ll see what I mean. Each character symbolically represents something more profound than what’s presented face value. So, I was commissioned to go to The Fresh Market, much to my opposition as the prices there are way too high and I could care less about the organic stuff. The pesticides never aggravated my tremor in the operating room, anyway. At my wife’s behest, I had to buy the pre-cut salmon filets, which cost quite a bit more than the usual bulk slab. Last time, my wife didn’t have the courage to request the Millenial fish butcher to kindly cut the huge slab into 5 pieces. Would’ve been cheaper. But I think she feels for the lad. I can only try to explain this new precedent by saying my dear wife forgot to get her usual affluenza shot at the doctor’s. I was thinking of asking Freddy to smell the fish to make sure it was as fresh as its namesake distributor. He may not have thought it funny. And he had a mask on, so he couldn’t. Maybe his union forbade him to honor such a request. Thus, I relented. Nothing scares me more than a 20-something kid with a quizzical look behind a makeshift mask who is standing motionless with surprise and wielding a large knife with bloody gloves on. I waited with bated breath for my prize fish, as patiently as a compliant Soup Nazi customer. I was duly served. Got the main item without any trouble. Seven dollars is the premium I paid to avoid having to reconcile generational dissonance. Nine more salmon dinners would exceed the net worth of my 2008 Subaru. Probably will have to cut back on Jiffy Lube. I then meandered to the produce section. I sniffed the ice-mist more than once. Okay, more than three times, but nobody was looking. My hard-wired immigrant market acumen and Super Vision helped me zone in on the cheapest apples. I can make up for the fish, I hoped. Found a few juicy looking ones, and plucked their stems before considering bagging them. I learned that killer move from my Upahaar 2020
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