Carted
Marcy lives on a quiet street in a modest house bordered by similar looking homes. She’s blonde, about my height, and though she claims to be forty-two she looks ten years younger. Her parents are both walking that ever-narrowing balance beam between living in their own home and moving to some kind of independent/assisted living set-up, or maybe even to Marcy’s house. Though she has siblings, Marcy is the principal care provider. “It’s easier on me.†“My brother lives too far away.†“My kids are older.†One suspects she’s always had this role.
As I sat down at her breakfast table, Marcy said, “I’ve got a story to tell you.†In front of me – a cup of too-hot-to-touch coffee and a blueberry muffin. Just like the first day I arrived to help her fashion new closets. She doesn’t ask; she just gives. And her stories are told in much the same way. You can be having a laughter-induced epileptic seizure and she’ll dead-pan on. Most people, myself included, play to the audience. If a line gets a laugh, it’s expanded upon, but not Marcy. She’s much more in control.
As I sip my coffee, she begins:
“I was in The Christmas Tree Shop and …â€
“They sell something other than…â€
“Christmas stuff? Think of Pier One.â€
“You mean junk no one needs?â€
“You were with me? I’m walking through the aisles with my shopping cart and I hear over the loudspeaker, “If anyone has mistakenly grabbed the wrong cart, will they please return it to the Service Desk.’ I think to myself, What dumb bastard would take someone else’s cart? Then I look at my cart, which should have been empty, but it’s full. I was horrified. This woman must have been shopping for an hour.â€
I can’t leave out how hard I’m laughing. As Marcy is talking, I’m watching Diane gently wrestle the wrong grocery cart from my hands. Sometimes, when I’m alone, and I’ve latched onto the wrong cart, I keep it. I figure this is the only way I’m going to leave this store with its  veritable cornucopia of choices without the same six items I always buy.
Marcy continues, “The last thing I want to do is return the cart and have anyone see me, so I sneak it back to the Service Desk and as I’m walking away I hear, ‘Oh, Sally, there’s your cart.’ I walked right out the front door.â€
“Empty handed?â€
“I didn’t buy a thing. That night after dinner I tried to tell my husband, Ken, what I’d done, but he wouldn’t let me.
 He said, ‘Please, Marcy, I don’t want to hear anymore stories.’ â€
I didn’t convey it well, but the tone was as if he had heard too many similiar stories, and he didn’t want to contemplate having to lock up his wife.
I’d say it takes an overly burdened person to get upset that someone has taken their cart. Especially if they get the damn thing back.
Comment by michael Miller — September 18, 2005 @ 4:46 pm
She’s 45 not 42 but you are right, easily pass for 10 years younger. Actually she looks better now then when she was 10 years younger. This is hilarious. I’ve done it myself, always in the grocery store. I’ve even gotten to the register before I’ve realized. Had a woman get real mad at me in Sudbury Farms once. But I have to say it must take a very burdened head to take a nearly full cart. Must have been something in there she really liked. And what’s with that Ken blowing off his lovely spouse. Men.
Comment by been there — September 18, 2005 @ 3:53 pm
Oh that’s where you’re wrong. There’s a fair amount of contemplation that goes on in the Christmas Tree Shop. For example, do you buy the candle votives that are on sale for 90 cents a piece or do you remember that you have 20 just like them at home and decide maybe you don’t really need them? Then there’s the seasonal section. Do you buy the wooden easter bunny that’s also a nutcracker for two dollars or do you remember that you really don’t need wooden bunny nutcrackers and who decorates like that anyway? Do you go through their food aisles and contemplate the black bean salsa vs. the mango salsa and decide to buy both or do you buy neither? Valid questions all. So if that woman had a full cart I’ve no doubt there was a fair amount of anxiety involved when she turned around and found it not there. I’ve no doubt that if I went into the Christmas Tree shop and grabbed the wrong carriage I wouldn’t want anything in there. You are right about him not wanting to commit her though. They are both very funny people and both tell great stories.
Comment by been there — September 18, 2005 @ 9:41 pm
Do you remember the first Christmas Tree Shop on Mass Ave in Cambridge about half the way up to Porter Square? It opened only around Christmas time each year. Or was that in no way related to the ones that now sell salsa and black beans?
Comment by michael — September 19, 2005 @ 6:30 am
RIGAL (Rolling in the grocery aisles laughing.)
When I go shopping, it’s not the full grocery carts that have a magnetic pull on me, it’s the empty ones. Usually I forget to grab a cart on the way in, I buy a few things and with my arms full of salsa and beans or whatever, I look for an empty one in the aisles. Sometimes I’m successful, sometimes I’m not. But I’ll never forget the time I grabbed an empty one, and a woman appeared out of nowhere, and latched her hands on it saying, ‘That’s my cart!’ Sheesh. People take things too seriously.
Comment by rakkity — September 19, 2005 @ 9:45 am
Cart rage. There needs to be a support group.
Comment by been there — September 19, 2005 @ 9:55 am
Oh my…this was a great story and very funny. Hits very close to home, too. I have taken the wrong cart so many times at Roche Bros. that I don’t do any of the grocery shopping anymore…it’s in the much-more-capable hands of my husband.
Comment by karen — September 19, 2005 @ 3:49 pm