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Thank you, woman in Wegmans who looked at me today and then, when I looked, glanced away only to look at me again. It has been longer than I care to consider since I was last checked out and I'm over the moon that it happened today.

It was a challenging day at work. I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing but kept doing it. After a day like that it's not Miller time so much as Wegmans time for bagels to break my wife's and daughter's Yom Kippur fast and a bag of pistachios for me. That and to people-watch. In the bakery aisle I got bagels and slowly made my way to dairy humming Springsteen's — "Western Stars" — until I remembered we didn't need cream cheese. I went to the back corner thinking I might get beer but decided against it and turned down the snack aisle so I could decide against a bag of chips. I grabbed pistachios hoping they're maybe least a little healthier.

Along the way I saw two guys laugh near the flowers, a small child pointing at her teeth less to show me than to count them (she was on twenty-nine when I passed, which I thought was optimistic), a woman limping in high heeled sandals, three old people hanging onto carts being gently pulled by quiet people with faraway eyes every one, a woman in black dress, heels, and make-up fit for a state dinner, three college women carrying fancy water bottles and wearing black running tights, and one dog being trained to help others. Don't pet. That dog's working.

At the registers the old woman ahead of me paid with her "Oh, it's so easy!" she said. The boy nodded, eyebrows raised. After she left, he scanned my pistachios and I told him, "five bagels." I tapped my phone (so easy!) and thanked him. Picking up my bag, I looked at a woman looking at me. She turned her eyes away then looked again and turned away. I smiled, not at her (creepy!), but at getting checked out. Day made.

Now, sure, I might have had ink on my shirt in the shape of a gunshot wound or a split down my pants (two things I've had at Wegmans before), but no, so I'm going with the odd notion that she checked me out and riding that high. Why not?

Thank you, woman in Wegmans who checked me out today. It's hours later. The sun is down. Yom Kippur has ended for my wife and daughter (I'm not Jewish). The moon is up and there I go, right over it, into the heavens.