Don't weigh the paper!

Growing up in a Jewish family in the suburbs of New Jersey, there were certain traditions we upheld to remind the neighbors we were different and not to be trusted.  One of which was to go every Sunday to the local bagel store to get some bagels and lox to fight over as a family.  Sure in this family my father would get super high before we left and then discuss how rich he would be if he owned a bagel store or a bakery.  Then there was my mom who was in charge of the actual buying of the bagels.  She would whip out a coupon from a competing store and insist that it be accepted by them even though it was expired on top of everything else.  All this was fine until the time came for her to buy a few measly slices of lox.  She would ask the girl behind the counter (coincidentally who was in my class) for a quarter pound.  This was just enough for either one family member to have an enjoyable bagel or enough for every bagel to smell like fish but taste like crappy temptee cream cheese.  When we would call Sybil on her cheapness she would go on some tirade about how if she bought more we wouldn't eat it and it was seventy five dollars an ounce.  She insisted on lying about the price for absolutely no reason.

Back to the story at hand,  when Sybil would ask for the slices of lox,  the girl behind the counter would throw a piece of wax paper on the scale and begin to put each slice on top of it.  This is when Sybil would go insane.  She would scream at the girl that she was getting ripped off and was being charged for the weight of the wax paper.  When the poor girl would explain that the scale was set to below zero so that when the wax paper was put on it would zero out, my mother would look at her like she was being mugged at knife point.  Sybil would yell at the top of her lunges that she was being robbed. I even think she told the girl that weighing the paper was anti-Semitic. To rectify the situation Sybil insisted the wax paper be removed and that the sliced fish be put directly on the filthy scale.  As with most people,  the girl wouldn't know what to do so she just abided.  Meanwhile I would be turning a shade of red that glowed in the dark.  After my mother paid with pennies and coupons to the local gas station,  the girl behind the counter would throw me side glance and say see you in Math class tomorrow.