Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The World We Live In

Today, I found myself at the local Michael's arts and crafts store. I needed frames for some stunning photos my aunt gave me. After a long while (waaaay longer than I expected) I was finished and checked out.

I had the baby with me and three 16 x 20 wood frames perched on a cart that does not leave the store. To ensure that it doesn't leave the store there's a long pole attached to the side which won't fit through the door. I guess technically you could tilt the cart ALLLLL the way backwards and walk through the door, but if you can do that and keep your stuff intact, chances are you didn't need the cart in the first place.

Well, I wasn't tilting the baby or the frames, but the cashier told me I could leave the cart at the exit door, and pull up in the car. I pushed the cart over to the door, took off the infant car seat with my cutie snoozing cozily, and went to the car. I pulled up to the front of the store, and entered the vestibule. The doors that take you from inside the store back out to the vestibule were right next to me on my right. My cart, through the glass door, was inches from me , and by extension, only a few feet from my car and baby.

The doors to enter the store were in front of me, and had I gone inside I would then have to walk around a display area and the returns desk to get back to the exit door and my stuff, thus putting me many tens of feet from my baby, losing visible contact with the vehicle,while illegally parked in a fire lane. The automatic doors did not look to be my friend this day, as the exit door only opened from inside the store, not from the vestibule, and there did not appear to be anyone online to pay (and subsequently exit the store giving quick access to my purchases.).

As one very large man hurried past me , a woman entered right in front of me, and I saw my chance to ask a stranger to walk by the electric eye on the inside of the store to let me in "the out".

"Excuse me, can you help me please?"

"I'm really in a rush," she said very brusquely as her body visibly tensed up.

I very quickly blurted out, as she was walking into the store, that I just needed my wagon, but didn't want to walk all the way into the store with my baby in the car at the curb. She seemed to soften, but I wasn't sure she heard me.

As she entered the store, the burly fellow who had past me mere moments before, probably figured he walked into the wrong place (but still left smelling of potpourri, it's unavoidable!!),and made his way to the exit, opening the doors to my purchases.

Lo and behold, the woman I had asked for help, was just coming around the service desk to activate the doors for me, and I said

"Thank you anyway for trying to help me."

To which she replied:

"I'm sorry I was so suspicious."

1 comment:

Doobie said...

i wonder what she thought you were asking for?