Just the other day when I stopped at a local bread ‘‘thrift’’ store to get my daily bread, it tasted more like manna. I was surprised to find the tiny store packed with about a dozen shoppers. By the time I made it to the queue of the only cash register, there were six or seven people ahead of me. Fortunately, everybody in line had just a few items. In spite of my optimism, the middle-aged man in front of me began to look more and more anxious and angrier by the second. He shook his head, sighed fast and hard like a beast while rolling his eyes, and stared in three-second intervals between his watch and the ceiling. Our slow cashier was not particularly cognizant of the mounting consumer angst in line as she laboriously packed buns and loaves into bags in exchange for legal tender. It seemed as though it took her a whole minute and a half to wait on each customer. God forbid it might have been about a minute per customer too long for us to have to look at her face-piercings.