‘Retired Life’

I was in the grocery store today. I was picking up some ginger and garlic for Joyce at the fresh food counter. When I turned away from the fresh foods counter, my yet empty shopping cart was gone. I shook my head and wondered how it had disappeared so quickly. It was not a major issue as I just had a few lightweight bags of fresh goods. I left the fresh foods area and headed toward the meat counter to see if there were any bargains there. The whole time I walked the store I looked for my missing cart. I knew I would recognize it because the previous shopper had left a small slip of white paper with the shopping list in the cart. After finding no bargains at the meat counter, I headed down the coffee aisle to pick up the last item on my list. Halfway down the aisle I approached two seventy plus gray-haired women blocking the aisle as they chatted away about groceries. Just as I arrived there, they were parting, when one of them started picking up every item in her cart, looking for a missing purchase. I looked at her and I said, “I bet you are looking for your missing tomatoes.” Her eyes opened as big as saucers when she asked how I knew. I told her she had taken my empty cart and left her two tomatoes in her original cart over at the fresh food counter. I told her I knew my cart by the slip of paper in the bottom of the cart and when she started looking for her missing item, I realized it had to be her tomatoes all alone in her original cart. She was very embarrassed and wanted to try to lift everything out of the cart to give it back to me. I told her I was fine without the cart and that her tomatoes were still by the fresh foods.


I used to work on airplanes, then IC circuits and computers, then circuit boards and now I rescue old women from themselves. Life just gets better all the time.