HEAVENLY PAYBACK

Today I got payback.

I loaded all of my groceries into the trunk of the car, wheeled my grocery cart (with my purse still in it) to a safe spot, got into the car and drove off.

Fortunately, my next stop wasn't too far away so I realized within 10 minutes that I didn't have my purse. After searching the trunk to see if I'd put it in there with the rest of the stuff, it finally sunk in that I had done the unthinkable. After all of the moaning and groaning I'd done when I'd had my purse stolen out of my kitchen 3 years ago and had to go through all of the stuff necessary to contact credit card suppliers, the bank and DMV as well as mourn my lost treasures (2 pairs of reading glasses- one brand new and never worn yet, a new and unused flashdrive- thankfully it didn't have hours of work on it, and things so precious that it raises my blood pressure too high to contemplate anymore), I'd just calmly walked off and left my purse to chance.

Breaking a few speed limits, I sped back to the grocery store. The cart was right where I had left it, but purseless. I hoped that someone had taken it into the grocery store, but when I asked, no one had.

When I came back out to my car and empty cart, I just stood there, totally dazed and too stunned to even pray for a miracle. Fortunately, while I was standing there trying to get my mind to function, an older gentleman came to his car with his groceries and saw the dimwit standing there staring at an empty grocery cart and asked me if I'd left a purse in the cart. He had it in his car to take to the police station.

Thanking him, I told him I had found several purses in carts and always wondered how people could do that. He said it's easy at our age.

Thank goodness for heavenly payback. But perhaps I'd better not count on it again.

New rule: Put my purse in the car before the groceries (better to forget the potatoes).

PS (3 days later)
After lying awake for a couple of nights trying to remember what in the world happened to allow me to walk away from a grocery cart with the biggest purse in Orange County sitting in it (am I really that nutso now?), I finally figured out what happened.

I always pull forward in a parking lot so that I don't have to back out of my parking spot. (Lesson learned when a lady in a new Cadillac saw me backing my van out of a spot, but thought she could make it past me if she hurried.)

When I came out of the store, there was a car parked by my driver's door and lots of empty carts behind my car so I put my cart on the passengers' side of the car and carried the groceries from that side of the car to the trunk. By the time I had finished loading the last bag, I grabbed the wrong cart and stored it out of the way and didn't notice my cart with the purse when I got into the car. The gentleman saw my purse when he parked the normal way and tried to open his door.

So maybe I'm just a little less goofy.

But I'm still going to put my purse in the car first.