As I was walking towards the door at the grocery store one Thursday afternoon, an employee was bringing carts back from the parking lot. “Here,” she said, offering an empty cart. I took it and went through the store quickly, getting some last minute stuff (and using some coupons). At the checkout counter, I had put all my groceries on the conveyor belt, when I glanced down and saw a long, dark thing in the bottom of the cart, pushed against one of the sides. What? Hmmm. It was a cane.
“Someone’s left their cane in this cart,” I said to the cashier, who was preoccupied with scanning my groceries. I was wielding my coupons and getting my loyalty card and my credit card from my wallet, and had run out of hands. Another employee came up to begin bagging my groceries, and I picked up the cane, held it out to her, and said, again, “Someone has left their cane in this cart.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’ll take it to the office,” and she walked the few steps over to the customer service desk, and, I’m hoping, to the Lost and Found. I’m imagining someone using their cane to walk to the store’s entrance and then putting the cane in the cart because holding on to the cart’s handle would probably be enough support as they walked through the store. Then, um, maybe they used the cart as they walked from the store to their car. And, if they put the cart, gently, up against the car’s side, they could have put a bag of two of groceries into the back seat and closed the door. Then, maybe they opened the front door and got inside the car, being able to manage all that, but also forgetting to get the cane. Maybe they got all the way home and got out of the car before even realizing that the cane had not come home along with the groceries.
I understand about leaving important things behind.
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- This is my favorite aisle in the grocery store parking lot. The first few slots on each side are designated for Handicapped drivers. The remaining slots in the rows are for anyone. I always park there because I feel safer walking to and from the store when I’m in between the rows of parked cars, and don’t have to worry about cars driving by. There are other lanes with handicapped spaces, but without this wide inner lane. I guess this wider inner lane accommodates customers who are using the motorized shopping carts.
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- There’s a spot for empty carts, but often people leave them nestled at the front of their car, which works all right, because there’s aren’t cars driving by and carts drifting in to the oncoming traffic. And I like it when I park my car and get out and find an empty cart sitting right there, waiting for me to take it into the store.
That’s what I did, one day recently. I put my purse and my big bag of bags in the cart and walked toward the store. When I got up to the entrance, I saw that there were some of the smaller carts (like the one in the photo above), and I decided that I didn’t need the big, regular cart. The smaller one would work fine, and I transferred to the smaller cart. I shopped for the few things that I needed. and finished up pretty quickly. Having less that ten items, I could go through the self checkout lane. And, I was able to get everything easily into my purse, which really is pretty spacious.
I walked back to the car, opened the door, put my purse in, and, hmmm, where were my bags? Nooooooooo. When I switched carts, I’d left my recycle grocery store bags in the other cart. My large HEB insulated bag, a few other lightweight bags that I’d been using for a couple of years, and one of the Crayola bags that I’d purchased at the Crayola Experience store.
I went right back into the store and waited in line at the Customer Service area. When it was my turn, I explained what happened and asked if the bags had been turned in to the Lost and Found. They looked. And, no, there were no bags. And we both assumed that someone, who walked up to the cart area, after I had walked away, looked and said, “Well, well. Free bags!”
And that was that.
“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
Matthew 5:43-47 (The Message Translation)
A few days after I inadvertently gave away my HEB bags, I bought new ones–a new, large insulated bag and another “Texas” HEB bag. And, I have four of those nice, big, sturdy “penguin” bags that I got, for free, from the zoo folks, who used them as advertisement for the bond vote for Zoo improvements, which passed!
I actually left my purse in a grocery cart at Publix in Tallahassee two different times. I think because I had my car keys in my hand and was so intent on loading bags that I missed a small purse still in the child sitting area. Miraculously, both times a kind person turned my purse intact into the customer service.