Commerce on the Go

Recently I witnessed a very unique sales technique- hitching a ride.  I was riding home in a transportation van in the evening. I was sitting next to the door and a man was sitting across from me who did not have the exact change for his fare. He asked for change, so at the next stop the fare collector guy ran off to get some. He was gone for quite a while, and I noticed that there was a man selling bread alongside the road. He was almost close enough to the side of the van that I could pass him money through the window. I thought about doing this, but didn't have the exact change and figured the man wouldn't have time to dig around for change before the fare collector came back and we left. As I was thinking this, the man sitting across from me signalled to the seller next to the bread man, who had eggs for sale. As the egg man came walking over the van, our fare collector reappeared. The egg man reached the van just before him and thrust the two eggs towards my co-traveler. But the price of eggs is only slightly more than the price of the van ride, and the man still didn't have any change. He tried to motion to the egg man that he wasn't interested after all, that he would get the eggs another time. The egg man either didn't understand or felt like being stubborn, so he kept thrusting the eggs through the door. Meanwhile our fare man had jumped on, and even before his feet were in the doorway the van had begun to roll forward. Soon the egg man was running along behind the van as fast as he could go, still holding out the eggs. The man across from me saw that he was going to be buying the eggs whether he wanted to or not, so he tried as quickly as he could to get change from the fare man so he could pay the egg man. This exchange took too long, however. The egg man couldn't keep up the pace and was forced to hop onto the bumper and ride along on the back of the van. When at last the fare man had given change to the passenger so the passenger could pay the egg man, we were a good block away from the egg stand and moving at a good clip. The egg man ended up riding several blocks before we stopped and he could jump off. All of that for about fifty cents! Talk about dedication to your job.