We’ve all been there, when you’re set to relax for the evening and suddenly you realise that you are completely out of bread for the kid's packed lunch the next day, so you head to the shops.
What you wouldn’t expect on your visit however is to be tasked with a maths question, aside from the usual adding up your spare change to pay for your items of course.
Moreover, you wouldn’t expect to be offered anything you wanted from the shop for free if you answer said maths question correctly.
However, if you were to step into a certain New York deli, you might just have that unusual experience.
Cashier Ahmed Alwan at Lucky Candy in the Bronx wanted to help out the local community and began to allow customers to take whatever they wanted from the deli completely free of charge under one condition - they correctly answer a maths problem.
Ahmed has been posting videos of the results to his TikTok account and has amassed 3.6 million followers and an extraordinary 69.9 million likes on the platform.
In the videos Ahmed tells customers that if they can answer a maths question they have five seconds to grab whatever they would like from the deli completely free of charge. The results are quite entertaining.
The elation on customer's faces when they realised they have got the question right followed by them dashing around the store make for wholesome content that will have you cheering on the customers from behind your phone screen.
Customers of all ages and from all walks of life are featured but one savvy customer, a young boy named Mohammed, seems to finesse the system by even asking for $50 from the till.
Mohammed was asked to answer 12x12+50. A correct answer of 194 satisfies Ahmed, giving the boy the go ahead, as shown in the TikTok clip above.
According to CNN, Ahmed revealed how he pays for everything out of his own pocket, his concern not being the cash but wanting to helping low-income community members.
Some featured customers have known Ahmed for years since he began working at the deli family business whilst some are complete strangers. However, everyone gets a fair shot at solving a maths problem.
Speaking to CNN, Ahmed said: "This changed our relationship with the community big time.
“They're all showing me so much love and lining up at the store just for a chance to play. We have so many visitors coming to take pictures and say hi. But it's not about me. It's about the community."
Going forward, Ahmed plans to produce more videos and getting increasingly creative with his questions. He has even set up a GoFundMe to support the community further.
So far, $11,897 has been raised to date, a sum that goes towards products and food used for the challenges as well as donations for customers in need.
