I pushed my trolley down the aisle, picking up all I thought I needed from the shelves, and dumping them into the basket. I took hold of the handle, and was about to push to the counter when my girlfriend’s favourite American potato snacks popped through the shutters of mind. She would nag the life out of me if I didn’t get Pringles for her, and it had to be the mango salsa flavour. I made a quick turn to the shelves where all bags and cans of provision were kept. I knew the shelf for Pringles, but there was already a squat, fat man in front of it, his hand extended towards the cluster of my girlfriend’s Pringles. However, much to my excitement, the man was peering into his phone which he had in his other hand, his trolley waiting to be filled. I grinned, and hurried forwards. With a sheer disregard for the man’s fat hand that was still outstretched to the Pringles, I snatched the last three of the mango-salsa-flavoured Pringles on the shelf, and threw them into my trolley. I made to take a turn and hurry to the counter when I heard the throatiest voice ever. It was a low, guttural voice that you could only hear when you get into the ghetto; the kind of voice hoodlums who were chronic smokers had. “Hey, young man!” the voice came as I turned to its direction. It was the fat man. I was about five heads taller than he was. He had a snub nose, fat cheeks, a cleanly shaven jaw, and big, deep, soulful, black eyes. He looked well over sixty years. “What did you do that for?” He asked with an edge to his voice. I was trying to wrap my mind around why the man thought he could frighten me with his voice. “Excuse me, sir,” I said, matching his glare with a stony one of my own. “What did I do?” He stared at me for a moment, and said, “I was here first!” “I took the Pringles first!” I returned, my voice just as high as his. I made a turn, but a hard grip stopped me. I turned, and it was the man again. His eyes were colder than ever, and I just couldn’t imagine how he could muster such an iron grip. I contained my rage and resolved not to start up something. Old people were irritable after all. As coolly as I could, I said, “Sir, let go of me.” A couple of seconds of monstrous silence walked past, and he let go. My arm which he had clutched was aching. I batted my eyelids at him. “I am sorry,” he said. “Please, I need those Pringles.” “Mister!” I bawled, jerking my hand at the shelf where the Pringles were kept. “There are still a lot of Pringles here.” “It is the mango salsa flavour I want, my boy, and you took the last of it. This is the third shop I have come to search for this particular flavour. Please, I need it,” the man said, looking desperate and nearly etching pity into my heart. “Mister, if you were about my age, I would have given you a dirty slap!” I barked, and he flinched, some customers were beginning to gather like a kettle of vultures circling meat. “Now, you are calling me your boy because you feel you need me. You old men think you are ruling the world. You cannot give the youths a chance, yet we claim youths are the leaders of tomorrow. There is no tomorrow because your age mates have stolen it from us, and we have all been trying to fix all what you guys messed up. Next time, if you come to a mall, don’t stand before the shelf and start pressing your phone. You don’t have shopping rights more than I do!” I had vented my spleen. I felt slightly relieved. The fat man, still as the dead, said nothing, did nothing, as I walked away, waving off the security man who was walking towards me. I paid for everything I had picked off from the counter and headed out of the mall. I stiffened, and sat a while under my driving wheel to brood over my life. I knew I loved Titi with everything I was, and that it was same for her, and even more, but I was always afraid and uncertain of the forever-afters. Would I want to spend the rest of my life waking up beside her, enduring her excesses, making love to her, and her only? I was not yet sure of the answer to this question, but she was just so persistent about meeting her father. Titi seemed more assured than I was. We had better not be making a mistake, I thought and started the car. Titi had told me a lot about her father. She often deified him in every one of her stories. She said he had played both the role of a father and mother since her mother died to cancer when she was still a child. Titi’s father had served in the army for thirty-five years, and despite his nomadic lifestyle, he took his only daughter wherever he went, and watched her grow into the woman I had come to love. Today, I would meet this incredible father of hers for the first time, I said as I gave the door panel a polite knock. I heard Titi’s voice from inside and it felt as though euphoria was being unruffled in the very pit of my belly. I loved this girl, I was sure. The door was drawn open, and there she was, Titi, the woman of my dreams in flesh and grin. She was some two heads shorter than I. She had the purest pair of black hooded eyes, a slightly broad nose, and thick, proud, sensual lips. “Come in, handsome,” she said and stepped out