Amazing grace is free

This is my story of finding Amazing Grace at Wheaton College!
When I worked in Carol Stream, Illinois in the late 90’s I often took my lunch break on the campus of Wheaton College. I would sit on a bench on their front law, use their library for some research on various areas for my work. I would even eat lunch in the Wheaton cafeteria, (and yes, Wheaton College had a GREAT Food Service in their cafeteria). After lunch I would often browse in their bookstore.

One day as I was strolling through the bookstore, I happen to run across a display of music cassettes, (remember those?) that were on sale. As a rummaged through them to find out which ones I might like, I found an Acapella Vocal Band cassette. There were lots of songs on the cassette that I liked but one of the songs on the cassette was Amazing Grace.
 
The best thing about this find was that it was on sale, and it was only $.25 cents.  TWENTY-FIVE CENTS! I was not putting that one back to decide later, I wanted Amazing Grace now.  As I looked through the rest of the choices, I noticed that they had many other copies of this same cassette.  I decided that this was worth every penny that I would spend on it. I picked it up and walked toward the checkout counter.
 
As I was standing in line waiting to check out, a young woman in front of me noticed what I had in my hand. She asked what it was?  When I told her what it was, she became interested. Now mind you she was an attractive, petite, well dressed, did I say extremely attractive, young African American woman. She looked like a professional model who had just stepped on the front cover of Jet Magazine. 
 
As I handed it to her to peruse, I told her it was a group called the Acapella Vocal Band, and I expressed my like for acapella music. She looked at this and said, "Oh, I'd like one of these. It has Amazing Grace on it. I'm going to go get me one."

She asked me where it was located. I said, “Here, you take mine, I'll go back and get me another one so you can check out, because it was her time for her to step up to the cashier. I scurried back and found me another one.
 
When I got back to the checkout lane, she had already finished paying for her order and was putting the items that she purchased in one of their store bags. I then reached out to pay for my only item, my bargain $.25 music cassette, and the clerk said, “That's OK, she's already bought it for you.” I looked at her and said, “You didn't have to do that,” as I tried to hand her a quarter.  She looked at me and said, “Brotha, Anytime I can get Amazing Grace for $.25. I'll take that deal!”
 
I grinned at her, looked back, and very playfully said, “Sistha, let me assure you, Amazing Grace is FREE!”

At which point she had finished packing her bag looked at me and said, "Brother, it is for you today!" With that final comment, she turned around, and walked out.