The Man With The Truck

Not a title for a children's book.

The Man With The Truck is a Monsey fixture on Wednesdays, at the Vishnitz School on Ashel Lane. Though I remember when he would come and park in a parking lot with his truck, and you practically went into his truck to buy the merchandise. Back then he didn't come every week, and you were notified by a flier in your milk box. Or Heimish grocery store bags. Like Klein's supermarket. Or maybe even Nagel's Grocery. But I digress. My point now being my experience shopping at the Man With The Truck.

I went there to by some boys' shirts for yomtov. I get on line, in back of a young girl who can barely balance the heavy towel, two tablecloths, and four pairs of pants in slimy slippery plastic that her mother asked her to hold while she continued shopping. This is an amazing sight to see. There is a line of people, mainly young, timid, girls, holding onto, or rather, practically grabbing their younger siblings, to keep them in line. In their hands they hold one or two objects. THEN when it is their turn to pay, in swoops the mother (or waddles, half the women shopping there are about to give birth) loaded with more merchandise. And she just walks right up to the Man who is the Man With The Truck and she pays.

So I have learned to live with this, annoying and rude as it may be. Hey, everyone in this town has become annoying and rude. So I am standing there, slowly moving up in the line, and as it becomes my turn, two young girls sidle into the line in front of me, behind the woman who swooped in to rescue her daughter who was collapsing under the weight of the damask tablecloths. So I said to the two girls, excuse me, were you both on line? And they answer, or mumble, yes, we just let people go in front of us. Okay, I see where this is going. THEIR mother didn't even pretend, she just parked them on line and then did her shopping, and each time is was their turn, since they had nothing to pay for, they let the next person go.

And of course, as their turn came, here comes the mother. But it wasn't the mother! Twas a relative or neighbor, because the girls said to the woman, is my mother buying shells, too? So then bigmouth me with the heart pounding and blogging paragraphs forming in my head, said,
"excuse me, it's one thing to be here for your mother, but not for a few people or relatives, I also have a lot of pesach work to do at home". They stared at me. All of them. Hello, am I the one doing something inappropriate here?

So when the woman in front was done, I swooped around them (I don't waddle) and said,
"I only have four things, I'm going before you" and I didn't make eye contact and I said it rudely and I acted like the ladies there all act.....and I felt awful.


Oh, and if you want a great Chol Hamoed Activity, the driveway there is one of the worst potholed, loose graveled, deeply cratered ones in Monsey. Drive really fast up and down the driveway with all the kids. Tell them it's like jeeping or ATV ing in the woods.