Diary fragment · 2 min read ·
My Till of the Last Price
A shopkeeper's till takes the prices of the day before the cards go up, and she has stopped correcting it.
- dated: "the pricing weeks"
- narrator: "Meg Dinnage, shopkeeper"
Tuesday, the third day of the pricing weeks. Wrote out the new cards for the fats and the flour last night and laid them in the drawer to go up at opening, old board still on the wall. At opening the till was already taking the new prices. Keyed the drawer wrong overnight, I told myself, first thing. Then the flour came and the till took the new figure with the old card still hanging over the sack, and the woman paid it without a word and so did I, and at five past nine I put the board up an hour early and the till and I agreed to say nothing about it.
Thursday, the fifth. I tried a trick on it. Wrote nothing down. Kept the new prices in my head, cards not cut, chalk not out. The day ran slow. Heavy all morning at the door and light all morning on the counter, bread proving late, the hackney late, a queue of one that stood a long time deciding. At noon I gave in and cut the cards, and the till cleared at once, and had been ringing true from the moment the pen started, not from the moment the card went up. The till obeys the writing. I have known that since the third day. What I learned Thursday is that it waits on the writing too.
Friday, the sixth. This morning at the sink, before I said anything out loud or cut any card, I settled it that butter goes up a penny. Settled it, mind. Not said to the girl, not papered, not done. At half past ten the till took the butter at the new price, an hour and more before I chalked the card, and when I chalked the card it was that figure, and the board went up and agreed. I am not a woman who is easy about being agreed with. The days have been meeting me before I set out to meet them.
Saturday, the seventh. Last day of the pricing weeks, and one thing set down plain. Sugar, which I had meant to leave alone all week, went through the till this morning at a figure I never decided. Old card on the shelf, girl on the scales, and the till steady on the new price from the first sale, hour after hour, patient as a bookkeeper. At closing I stood at the shelf with the chalk and my hand put up the till's figure. I watched it do it. I let it. So it is not the board that is first with the price, and it is not me either. I have written everything else down but not the question, because the question is the only thing this week I did not have a card for: when the till takes the price before I have thought it, whose thinking is it taking?