Buddy, can you spare eight cents?

Eight cents can make all the difference in the world.

One Monday morning on my recent trip back to San Antonio, I finally found the kolache I'd been looking for--two of them in fact, at a donut shop on Commerce Street downtown.

Having craved these for the couple of years I'd been absent from Texas, I sat down at at table near the window with my one sausage and one ham and cheese and a cup of coffee, completely pleased and satisfied. I had loaded up my coffee the way I liked it, lots of cream, lots of sugar and had the local paper in hand, ready to take a moment and savor the day. Total cost probably no more than $3.75 for a very filling meal and an Express-News.

I kept eyeing the crullers and the chocolate-covered cake donuts, two of my many weaknesses, but finally decided against ordering anything more, as I felt my gut press against the new belt I'd picked up at Dillard's the other day. A nice belt it was, and one I wasn't ready to outgrow just yet, even I'd gone for the "cheap one," a Kenneth Cole Reaction on sale for under $25, instead of the $85 Hugo Boss one at Nordstrom. Yeah, I could afford the Hugo Boss, in theory, but wasn't it just vulgar to spend that much money on a leather belt? I'd thought so, but I had really wanted it . . . .

The young woman at the counter, a petite Latina, struck up a conversation with me. She was very friendly and perky with a silly giggle of a laugh. She was perkier than might have been recommended for me at 10 am on a Monday, and I hadn't decided yet if I was going to be perturbed by her conversation. I'm not much of a morning person, you see, and I'd already gotten up three days in a row at 6 am to be at 8 o'clock meetings, one a breakfast to hear about new products for my business, another to discuss plans for returning to Frankfurt in 2006. Normally, I don't get to work until 9 or (if I'm being honest) 9:30.

The young woman, however, had opened the donut shop at 6 am that morning, meaning that she'd had to rise sometime earlier "to catch a ride with her brother," as she didn't have her own car. The shop was going to close at noon, and then later that afternoon she'd go to another location on Austin Highway to work into the evening.

I thought about the enormous Nissan Xterra I'd rented for this trip, in order to take friends I'd made in Frankfurt out to dinner. We'd gone the night before to Silo, a superb but admittedly expensive choice for a restaurant, not the kind of place I normally could afford or felt comfortable in when I'd live here. I would use the car to tool around town the rest of my stay. Total cost: about $400 for a week's worth of driving, not including gas. I'm thinking about buying a car this year, maybe even a new one, not just new to me, and I wondered if I could drive a large SUV safely and comfortably.

The young woman apparently had risen before 4 or 5 even, 3:30 am, I believe she said, as she was taking care of her sister's child while her sister worked the night shift. Her sister came around 3:30 to pick up her daughter. Neither of them, the aunt or the child, had gotten much sleep, she said, because they'd stayed up watching old children's videos the aunt had bought for her son years ago in a close-out bin at Wal-Mart.

"My niece, she loved them," she said. "I wonder if I can find some new ones like that to show her."

I thought about wanting to get a new DVD player this year, a multi-region one, so I could finally order DVDs from Europe and Australia and not worry about the compatibility.

At that moment, an older woman came into the shop. She spoke with an Irish brogue, which always seems unusual for San Antonio but is not completely unheard of. As it's a very Catholic city, you find a lot of nuns and priests from Ireland in the churches, colleges, hospitals, and charitable organizations in town. The woman was dressed in plain, dark colors, but in street clothes, as best as I could tell.

The woman ordered a glazed donut, then asked for a cup of coffee.

"How much is it?" the older woman asked.

"$1.07 ," replied the young woman.

"But it says $0.99 on the sign!" the older woman said, ruffled.

"There's 8 cents' tax," said the young woman.

A pause.

"I'll just have the donut, then."

The young woman served up the donut.

After another pause, though, ever so quietly, so much so that I almost didn't notice it, lost in thought about the sightseeing, visiting, and shopping I wanted to do this week, the younger woman poured the older woman a cup a coffee and gave it to her.

"I would just have to throw the pot out," she explained.

"Thank you, dear," the older woman said.

When the older woman left the shop a little while later, she placed on the counter a few coins for the younger woman. "For your trouble."

I had forgotten how poor a city San Antonio can be. I felt whiter than I'd felt in a while, since moving back East, walking downtown in an Italian blazer, dress slacks, a tie I'd purchased in Germany, and my favorite pair of Steve Madden shoes. Everywhere around me, people waited for public transportation, hung out on park benches, and trudged along the sidewalks schlepping overstuffed bags from discount stores--or made do with one glazed donut and no coffee.

I make more money now than I used to when I lived in San Antonio, but not a huge amount more. My expenses are different, and I've been able to pay off my car, my school loans, and reduce my credit card debt, so it's allowed me to have some breathing room and enjoy life a bit more. Thus the trip to England to see friends in May and the trip to Germany in October, a business trip, but a fun journey nonetheless. I can't even fathom at this point in my life not ordering a cup of coffee because of an eight-cent difference in cost. I blow much larger sums on half caf, half decaf, grande, skim lattes with a shot of vanilla at Starbuck's every couple of days.

It's times like these when I realize not merely how fortunate I am, but how fatuous my life can be. It's not like I haven't earned the right to my comforts and pleasures. I put in 50 hours a week, manage staff, pray that my 10-year old Subaru makes it the 60-mile round-trip to work everyday, and try to find time to have a life in the midst of all my obligations.

But still . . . .

Hugo Boss belts. Nissan Xterras. Dinners at Silo.

Just a few pennies more for a cup of coffee.

Welcome to life in the richest country in the world.