I accept the proffered pineapple, and examine it. Sheila turns back to her cart, reaching to pull another item from it.

"Mrs. Sheila, the store always puts price tags on the fruit."

She waves my rebuttal away, heaving up a gallon jug of milk from the lowest rack of her cart. "Really, David, you'd think so, but I guess it didn' happen with this one." She sets the jug on the conveyor belt, smiling at me.

"Yes, Mrs. Sheila, we do. We always put the tag on. Aside from that, we keep signs up on the market islands telling you what price they are."

She shrugs dismissively, her mouth turning to a sour pucker. She then frowns. "Your tag guy mus' be taking the day off. All the tags are blank."

I take a moment to process that. When it sinks in, incredulity comes quickly.

"No, Mrs. Sheila, we all pitch in to tag the stuff. I tagged some crates of pop just this morning."

Before I could address the actually incredible part of her pronouncement, Mrs. Sheila interrupts me. "Why don' you just use those little paper stickers? These plastic one's're all gross, sticky, and made of chemicals." She stresses the last word, as though it were a vile sickness, or perhaps an unfortunate bathroom visit.

Struggling to keep up, I latch on to the important bit. "Hang on, I thought you said it didn't have a price tag?" I spin the pineapple around, quickly locating it. Examining it, I immediately note that it is completely blank.

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"It isn't a price tag if it doesn't have a price!" She says, tilting her head back authoritatively, her mouth flipping again into triumphant smirk.

I ignore her, frowning even as I struggle to keep my eyes from widening. Just as she says, the tag is completely white, without any trace of ink or other markings.

She presumably catches on to my dumbfounded state, moving around the counter to look at the tag over my shoulder as I stare uncomprehendingly at the tag. "It's weird, innit?" She whispers into my ear. Her voice starts normally, but becomes progressively more tinny(and slightly louder), sounding almost like a bell as she reaches the "t" in "innit".

This is enough to startle me out of my stupor, my ear immediately tingling from the proximity and strange volume. I yelp(quietly, mind you, I'm an adult man) and move away from her, rubbing my ear, and incidentally cradling the pineapple to avoid shoving the cash register. "Mind your space, eh?" I squeak. The strangeness of my voice being a high pitched squeak gives me pause before I continue, but my hearing seems to readjust to normal by the end of the sentence.

If I'd had a hearing aid, the strange noises sound like what I'd think a hearing aid malfunction sounds like to the user. I don't, my hearing has always been fine, but for a moment the thought has me reaching up to my ear to feel it.

Mrs. Sheila pauses, probably from my progressively more confused expression, and adopts an apologetic affect. "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to scare ya. Still, it is weird."

"Yeah, it is..." I murmur, looking at the tag in increasing bewilderment. Setting aside my latest hearing glitch(I'll need to see my doctor about that, later), I focus on the important thing. Who scrubbed the ink off this tag?

"So..." Mrs. Sheila interrupts. Again. "How much is it?"

In that moment, I remember the words my mother always told me when I didn't have an answer: make something up.

Rallying as quickly as I can, I focus on making something believable. Something that she'd be willing to pay, not more than a dollar(pineapple is in season, it being summer and all), and probably more than 25¢. I add a dime to my minimum estimate, make a note to tell my manager about the price tag issue, and speak.

"3 Copper."