My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Stole My Shopping Cart. Prepare to Die.
What is the world coming to.
I was at the store a few days ago and somebody stole my shopping cart.
I left it in one tiny, cramped aisle that contained items I’m sure nobody ever needs and sped away to grab the other things I was there for, leaving behind a 4-pack of toilet paper and a bag of dog biscuits like they were kids in the car.
“You can listen to the radio, but don’t touch the cigarette lighter.”
A shopping cart slows me down. Shopping is all about speed. Gone are the days of dawdling in front of the canned tomatoes. There could be somebody with a gun walking through the front doors right this very minute. Or somebody with COVID also in need of tomatoes hacking their way towards me like a zombie in The Walking Dead.
I was away from my cart for maybe three minutes. (Yes, I know this is what people charged with Endangering Children for leaving their kids in the car tell the judge. “But, Your Honor, I only needed a pack of gum”, and then 30 minutes later the cops roll up because you answered a call and spent 30 minutes talking on your phone while staring at the potato chips).
And then I wasted five minutes walking up and down the empty aisles with a flotilla of Bounty in my arms wondering if I was insane.
Maybe I left it further down? Okay, maybe it’s in THIS aisle. No? Well, maybe THIS aisle.
Nope. There were literally two other people in the store. One was hooked up to an oxygen tank she was dragging behind her, and the other was using a rolling mobility cart to both put her items in and remain in an upright position.
GodDAMN it.
I couldn’t very well confront either one of them, even though I was itching for a fight. I was extremely inconvenienced, not to mention completely baffled by this theft. And we all know that being inconvenienced in today’s America is right up there with murder as far as crimes go.
Now I had to put back my bale o’ Bounty because I couldn’t carry it and the other things I absolutely, no question about it had to leave the store with. Like the toilet paper and the dog bones and the two cans of tomatoes.
Oh, and the padded mailing envelopes which are what I actually came to the store for and that I needed for my FOURTH job, which is selling every used book in my house on Amazon. (My storefront is called Bladefunner’s Books and I have no idea what I’m doing, thanks for asking.)
Sure, I could’ve gone to the front of the store and grabbed another cart. But that was admitting defeat. Plus it would take, like, another three minutes. I’m not getting any younger. The lady with the rolling mobility wagon was starting to look pretty smart.
Hercule Poirot never looked at a dead body and said, “Je suis désolé, I have no idea who killed this person.”
I know who it was.
It was the clerk who passed me on her way from the pharmacy without making eye contact or saying hello, even though we basically had to make out so she could get by me while I squished myself against the Kleenex.
She was wearing a name tag on a lanyard, so she was clearly drunk with power.
My cart was stolen by a Cart Nazi. She must’ve grabbed everything that was in the cart and with reflexes like she was in a fight scene from The Matrix, put everything back on the proper shelf, found a pay phone, and dematerialized, taking my cart with her.
WTF.
I’m still not entirely convinced that my cart didn’t disappear down a wormhole which is located in the cleaning products aisle of the Discount Drug Mart in downtown Medina, Ohio, in case future scientists are curious about why a shopping cart full of toilet paper and dog bones suddenly materialized in the middle of the ocean where Ohio used to be.
The title of this post is aces. Nice Matrix reference too!
You're a hoot!