Left Behind

I can't believe I did it. Last night, I became...um...one of...THEM.

One of those people who leaves shopping carts everywhere except where they belong--in the cart corrals.

It was late. I had live crickets in the car for my son's frogs. It was still in the high 80s, temperature wise and the car might have been 90. Milk was getting warm. Frozen goods were melting. And so was my patience.

I had run into every idiot in the world yesterday and the evening and night weren't proving any better. I wanted OUT of that parking lot. The nearest corral was nowhere in sight. Crickets could die.

So what did I do? Did I take the shopping cart to its proper home? Nope.

I abandoned it on the sidewalk, two stores away from its rightful residence. It was awful. It looked at me as if it were saying "Thanks! This is the gratitude I get for hauling your stupid stuff all over the stinking store??"

It may have just been the sounds of my wheels squealing as I pulled out of the space. But it sounded an awfully lot like a shopping cart crying. I raised my eyes to the rear view mirror and saw it sitting there confused, as if a friend had just left it in the middle of the desert.

The thought of that little fellow sitting there till morning, cold and alone right where I had left it, broke my heart. What if it had rolled out into the middle of the parking lot? What if it ran away to another big box store's cart corral?

The fact that I had become ONE OF THEM made me downright ill. I have NEVER done that before. Even if I have all the kids with me, I always manage to find a way to return the shopping cart. I remember one time it was raining KNIVES and I still trekked across the parking lot to make sure I did my responsible customer duty.

If that shopping cart happens to be reading this somehow. I am sorry. Truly. But if you never want to carry my stuff around again, I will understand.

But you might find it satisfying to know that I will need therapy for the rest of my life for becoming the thoughtless, inconsiderate moron that I always gripe about.