Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The most valuable lesson.

I saw a lady at the store today, two parking spots away from the shopping cart return, aimlessly push her cart towards the cart return.  Instead of doing the right thing and pushing the cart into the front of the hopper she just heaved the cart to the side of the return. The cart now rested clearly on the parking spot next to the return. She then hurriedly jumped into her car, but did not speed off. Instead she took a minute to fix her makeup, which gave me just enough time to enact my plan.

I grabbed the cart and pushed it behind her car and knocked on the window pointing to the car "watch out for your cart". She jumped out of the car and looked puzzled realizing there was no way that her cart could have traveled uphill 20 feet to rest there. It hit her that I put it there (I was shocked she figured it out so quickly). "What the fuck did you do that for?" "Well I saw that you had trouble putting this away right the first time so I thought I would give you a second chance, yea!  Think of it like a shopping cart bonus round.  Double points."  "You're an asshole"  "Now that you got right the first time" A comment that for some reason I felt needed to be followed up with a double thumbs up.  I almost started laughing as she pushed the cart right back to the same place she had before and stomped back into her car.

 
Now you might be thinking that i accomplished nothing, but I disagree.  Consider this.  How much time did she save by not putting this away properly the first time?  Let’s say ten seconds.  How much time do you think she wasted yelling at me?  Forty seconds.  By my math I just got a free 30 seconds of entertainment and you got the five best minutes of your day reading this blog.  And something tells me she will get it right the next time...if nothing else for the bonus points.
 
Cheers!

4 comments:

  1. OK - I must say I really like this story.
    Not too keen on the name calling - but you asked for it. My line is that adults HATE to be corrected in any way shape or form.
    However, I do agree that she will likely, albeit begrudgingly do a better job putting her carts away now.
    She will remember you - hopefully regretting her poor behavior - name calling!

    Years ago I saw someone dump an entire car ashtray (I know - wow does this date me - cars used to have ashtrays and cigarette lighters!)
    anyway, this person dumped an entire ashtray full of butts and ashes out of the vehicle in a parking lot just before going in to shop. It was all I could do not to try to scoop up the stuff and dump it in or on their vehicle. I resisted.
    But I did explain that the parking lot was NOT their personal trash can.
    They disagreed (!x%&##) - I bet they through stuff out the car windows too. BOOOO

    Robin

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  2. I remember Mom and Dad having us push the cart back to the store while they drove up to pick us up. I intentionally take a cart from the lot now to alleviate the congestion of lazy cart pushers. I hope this is a true story. I like it. Peter Bugg should tell you about the time he picked an aluminum can out of the street to return it to the driver that had thrown it there just before pulling into the gas station.

    BTW, is that anonymous commenter that signed her name, Mom?

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  3. If it is mom, dang she wakes up early to read my blog!

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  4. "five ... minutes"
    I resent the implication that we readers read at the same speed as that slut in the parking lot.

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