A lot of pocket change

Last night I went shopping at a supermarket on Central Avenue - picking up a few ingredients to make a cake for the office birthdays celebration.  The area of Central Avenue that I was shopping is close to Everett Road, and for those not familiar with the City of Albany - very close to the city.  There is a very mixed clientele at this particular store - some "uptown" folks and quite a few "downtown" and sometimes "downtrodden" folks.

There was a gentleman in front of me buying a few cans of cat food.  Those small packets that are supposed to be "gourmet" for cats.  I watched as he pulled a pile of coins out of his pocket and laid them on the conveyor belt.  I think it was mostly nickels and so it took the store clerk a while to count it out.  The man buying the cat food seemed clean and not poorly dressed.  I still could not help wondering if the food might not be for the cats, and that the coins were all he could muster to pay for the food.  I truly wanted to think better of it and assume the food was for his cat - and that he just happened to have a pile of coins to get rid of.

Let's leave it at that.