The other day I was at the Rite Aid drugstore. I was semi-sleep deprived. I wandered the aisles as I often do thinking, “I know I came here for a reason.” These types of days are never good. They always end up with me on line at the checkout with the most random basket of stuff – bobby pins, three manilla envelopes, 1 roll of paper towels, pacifiers, TUMS, one light bulb, a candle, small picture frame, etc. That will be $75 please.
In this particular trip I was saved by a short flash of light as I remembered why in fact I had come to the drugstore. To pick up my allergy medication. That’s right! Excited I ran over to the pharmacist window.
I waited for the girl behind the counter to assist me but she was taking forever. Lili was asleep in the stroller. So…I picked up a trashy magazine from the rack by the register and also grabbed one of the waters from a nearby cooler. After a few minutes I realized I was hungry so I reached over to the snacks and opened up a package of trail mix. I had good intentions of paying for it all but by the time the girl returned four hours later with my medication my mind had wandered.
Seeing that she was ready to ring me up I threw the magazine in the bottom of the stroller basket, stuffed the remaining trail mix in my purse and while getting out my wallet to pay for the medication had the balls to ask the girl to throw out the empty water bottle.
Me: So…how much is the medication?
Girl: Um…miss…are you also going to pay for that stuff?
Me: What stuff?
Girl: The magazine and the water and…
Me: (long pause) Oh my god. I’m so sorry!! I swear I was going to pay for it…I swear!
I suppose it is not as bad as the story a family friend shared recently. The friend was in a deli one morning (without her kid) and after getting her change grabbed the handles of another woman’s stroller and started wheeling out the door with some random child by pure habit and mistake.
Hopefully it won’t come to this.
oh uau! what a situation… i bet it wans’t as funny then as it is now!