Romantic Financial Transaction

The charity bookshop sales assistant was so incredibly beautiful I would drop the book I was pretending to read whenever she looked in my general direction.

She was so beautiful you had to almost laugh -  as if God was playing some kind of practical joke.

When I had built up enough courage to go near her I took my collection of pretentious books and headed over to her till. 

She looked even more beautiful up close then she did from across the store.

As she added up my bill she commented intelligently on the books I had chosen; what did I think of Brecht's acting methods? should Nietzsche be regarded as the father of the unconscious in place of Freud? what was the cause of the breakdown of of The Liberal Alliance in 1885?

I mumbled incoherently to each of her questions and presented my sweaty credit card.

Our fingers touched briefly as she handed me the pin code reader.
Shaking I put my card in the slot but there was a problem the card hadn't been read.

'Take it out and put it in again' she suggested.

I did as requested then typed my pin code in what I hoped was a-devil-may-care manner.

Romantic music began to play on the charity shops radio as my card details were checked. 

There I was face to face with a beautiful woman as modern capitalism did it's thing.

We smiled at each other within our electronically induced silent moment. Neither of us knew what to do or where to look but it didn't in the slightest way feel awkward. This is the most romantic financial transactions of my life I suddenly realised and wanted to share this revelation with her. Just as I was about to there was a beep and the sales assistant, who was so beautiful it was some kind of a joke, informed me that my card had been rejected.

I paid with cash and left.