The Grocery Cart Corral

One way or another...

With brute force, Louise lifted the full-sized grocery cart halfway out of the cart corral, and maneuvered it so she could pull the bottom half up and then put it over the other side of the two-lane corral. Frustrated that the corral was blocked off with a gate, she needed a cart now and didn’t have patience for someone to return another.

“Mooom,” both of her kids yelled.

She turned around and stared them down. At 8 and 10, her kids knew not to say another word or punishment would be forthcoming.

Louise wiped the sweat from her forehead and continued lifting. One way or another she was going to get a cart from that corral if it was the last thing ever. She could see it was open on the side she was switching it to.

With the cart now balanced between the rails of both lanes, she ran to the other side to manhandle the cart into the open-ended lane.

“Lady, need some help?” an older gentleman asked.

She looked at him as if he had two heads, and shook her head and scrunched her nose.

“No thanks. I think I got this.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to pull the cart out of the corral on its wheels? Both of those lanes have open sides?”

She looked up the other lane and sure enough, both lanes had open ends but on opposite ends.

Louise wiped her forehead again with the back side of her hand and looked at the man, and then over at her children. They were smiling and leaning back on their car because they saw her error and tried to warn her before he did.

“Yeah, I suppose that would’ve been the smart thing to do. How’d I miss it? Hmm, think they’ll mind that this cart is on top of the corral?”

“Probably, but it’ll give them something to talk about for a few minutes.”

“Thanks for your help, sir.”

“Oh, just trying to make life easier for people.”