Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Self Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

On Monday I ordered some mothers day stuff online and then left my credit card on my desk. Then on the way home I stopped at the bank and put my bank card and cash in the pocket of my jeans as I left. Tuesday I noticed my credit card on my desk and thought, "What a terrible place for my credit card!" So I put it in the pocket of my (different pair) of jeans.

This morning Jack and I headed to the grocery store and as I was getting in the car I hit my head. Hard. Why were we going to the grocery on Wednesday when Wednesday is clearly laundry day and not grocery day? Well because I needed stain stick, because the stain stick I have fell behind the dryer, and when I asked Dave to get it for me, he suggested that I add stain stick to my grocery list. I also needed some yummy bread for our picnic at the park this evening. And yes, I know it is raining, but I have picnic on the park on the agenda for this evening and the agenda cannot be changed.

I think I was still a little woozy from my head injury when we arrived at the grocery store, and I decided that I couldn't bear to lug the car seat around with me so I should just put Jack in the sling. But the sling was at home, so I decided to carry him, as that would prevent me from getting anything that wasn't on the list. Like a donut. Minutes later, in the self checkout, with a baby on my hip, wallet in hand, stain stick in Jack's hands and a loaf of bread balanced on my knee, I remembered that my credit card, bank card, and cash were in the other two pairs of jeans that I own. I did the only thing that was really possible in that sort of situation. I leaned my head back to look up at the heavens and said, "Oh Nooooo! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" As I remember it, I may have even shaken a fist at the Gods, but that doesn't really seem possible because my hands were sort of full. A nice King Soopers self checkout clerk came over to see what the problem was. I explained that I didn't have any money. Then I looked in my wallet, "Oh! I have 2 dollars!" He said, "Let me have those two dollars and we'll see how far that gets you and then I'll see what I can do." I needed another $2.5o or so and then I remembered that I had gotten a roll of quarters for the campground showers at Fruita, and then took only one shower, so I had a 16 quarters too. I just shook a bunch of change into his hand and he fed it all into the self checkout until the bill was paid.

And then he put the stain stick and bread into a bag and I said, "Thanks so much! But I don't need a bag, I gave up grocery store bags as a new years resolution. It's one of the many ways I like to make my life complicated. But thanks so much." And then I made Jack carry the stain stick to the car.


(In retrospect, I now wonder what would have happened if I hadn't come up with the money. An I.O.U? Free stain stick? Would I have had to bag groceries for 10 minutes until I worked off the cost?)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They would have put you washing dishes, or loading ground beef into the trays after you put all of the raw beef parts into the grinder to make the ground meat. At least you would have been selective of the 'parts' and the customer purchasing your trays would have gotten quality. paul

Family of Weebles said...

Cracking me up as always Megan! Thanks!