With Or Against?

"I went mad. I imagined the modern operation of buying and selling when the supermarket was finished. A housewife would come with a plastic carrying basket for vegetables. She would enter the door of the magnificent building in complete silence since whispering is the language of sophisticated people. The woman would push a small metal cart with two tiers through the aisles of the supermarket choosing what she wanted from the canned meats, vegetables, fruit, ghee, cheese, butter, soap, coffee, sugar, tea, and jam. Confidence would be absolute in this sophisticated place. Nobody steals. Nobody bargains. No tomato is bigger than another. No apple is unripe, or spoiled, no unsanitary open can of ghee, no open tin of cheese, no tin of cream, no pottery bowl of yoghurt, no leather pouch of cottage cheese. On each container would be a fixed price to save the time spent bargaining by an elegant buyer and a gentleman salesperson. The woman would count the number of pieces at the end and write out the bill like someone who didn't know how to speak. The employee would play on the calculator like a dumb-mute and from behind the cash register accept the money with a stern face. There would be no conversation in that place, which was totally convenient for everyone."

Taken from Siham Tergeman: Daughter of Damascus, English version by Andrea Rugh, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, 1994.