I could tell walking in I'd avoided the rush, which suited my purpose quite well. I had very few minutes in which I'd wanted to find a small amount of food, without leaving that less-traveled road I prefer. If I had to be going where everybody goes, at least I could be going when no one else was.

The fluorescents were the same as those lighting each strip-mall fast food place I've seen; only the details of the furnishings let me know which franchisor would provide the protein that I sought. The only two people in there were clearly paid to be: the lady wiping down tables and stacking the chairs upon them, and the man behind the counter wiping his hands on a towel, who had come in from the kitchen to help me.

I made my wishes known succinctly, as there wasn't much to tell. Almost too quickly, hands still cleaning each other, the man named a price in even dollars. I glanced at the board behind his head, added taxes to prices, and thought him a few cents short. I went the easy road and simply nodded, reaching for my wallet.

He tossed the towel to the counter, and raised the front of the register with his right hand. Some sinister fingerbanging along its bottom then went on with the other, and within a second, the register was back flat with its cash drawer popped wide open. I wasn't supposed to be watching.

My face must have shown some reaction to this - I'd not been expecting that move. Had he looked at me closely, he might have just seen, "wow - hey, do that again." I know I was briefly bemused.

"Sometimes this register gives me some trouble, and I have to open it like that," he said, defensively, not having looked at me closely enough.

The lady piped up from across the room: "Sometimes?"

With the universal "not right now" glance that men have perfected, for the purpose of women utterly missing it, he replied to her "Every so often."

Me, I just let it hang there and waited for them to work through their glances - waited for him to turn back, and met his gaze steadily when he did. He knew it was obvious to me that we were doing a deal off the books. We both could have daughters old enough to be doing that job - there were no odds of us misunderstanding that I was seeing what he'd done and why.

From respect for his story, I kept my face blank, and handed him cash at his price. From respect for my complicity, he put the bills in the register, where he could obviously get them later, and went off to the kitchen. I knew I was about to receive the best, quickest meal that the facilities would allow him to turn out.

As I waited, I pondered who might be doing what to whom. It's not impossibly unusual for men of his age to be underemployed handling a register around here; he could just be sticking it to the man. (Hey, I used to be good at dipping the till; employers shorted me at their peril.) He could as easily be the employer, with his house as well as his sweat in the game; he could be sticking it to a different man entirely. (Hey, we all hate paying our taxes, and I know how many bites would have been missing from those bills before they hit the owner's pocket.)

Mostly I thought of the corners that I cut, the ways I make my life yield a bit more than social compacts might decree that it should. I don't know whether I'm asked more often whether I should really be at work or with my wife; either way, my answer is always a too-perfected smile.

The only times it isn't: those times I'm asking myself.

I can make a case that I've been shorted, with which few disagree, and none can make the case that my wife or my work don't get their end. Still, the ways I make that all balance out seem like I'm following all the obvious signs, the path too clearly marked. I have to think I should want another way, and that I could find it.

That day, though, the smile is what came in handy, as the man handed me my meal. I nodded as we parted, to my companion on the well-traveled road.