Today, the kiddos and I ventured out for an oil change and rather hefty grocery run. The oil change was rather painless…the grocery trip was another story (that I am able to laugh about now).
When grocery shopping, I typically make a point to parking as close to the cart corral as possible. This seems to help with the transition of kiddos in the car, to the cart and then back into the car again.
Today was like any other day, I pulled A’s car seat out…put her in the shopping cart and then wheeled the cart over to B’s side of the car to get him out and situated in the cart’s child seat..at that point, I made the decision to leave the diaper bag in the car (to allow more room for groceries) and just clipped the carabineer on my car keys to the shopping cart. I proceeded to walk inside and start shopping (if it had only been that easy!!!).
When I walked into the store, I spotted an oversize shopping cart. Realizing the caliber of my list, I decided to switch carts so little A wouldn’t have to have groceries pilled on top of her in the cart. I lifted B out of his seat and got him resituated and then lifted A’s infant carrier out of our first cart and headed off to shop.
We spent our merry time perusing the aisles…talking about the different colors of produce etc. etc. until everything from the list was snuggly packed into our large cart. We proceeded to check out, unloaded that cart (at this point A decided she was hungry and start to cry…really wail), pay and start walking to the car.
It was at this point that I realized I couldn’t find my car keys…they weren’t were I had clipped them…or so I thought. As the wheels in my brain turned, I realized that I had forgotten to re-clip the keys onto our new cart which meant the car keys were hooked to one of the hundred plus shopping carts being wheeled around the store or parking lot!
I checked the customer service desk to see if someone had found them…this is when the water works started. The very polite woman asked me if I had anyone I could call to come “rescue” us while the store tried to locate the cart with the keys…I responded with a pitiful “I wish I could…but we just moved here and I don’t know anyone here yet!” At that point, she got on her walkie talkie and called in reinforcements.
The on-call clerk offered to take the groceries that I had purchased to the meat cooler (to keep my things from spoiling) and then offered me something to drink while I waited for the keys to be located. I took them up on the offer for the meat cooler, but said I wanted to help look. I checked (with B and hungry A in tow) the parking lot to verify that someone hadn’t stolen the car (I often go to worst case scenario first) and then started checking all the carts at the entrance of the store. With no sign of the keys, I walked over to the store’s snack bar to try to call C for help…and just then, I looked up to see an abandoned cart (in the corner of the café) with a little carabineer and keys hanging from it!!!
God in his graciousness pointed me quite literally in the direction of the lost keys!!! I quickly let the clerks know, got my still cool groceries back and proceeded to the car to get groceries and kiddos home for lunch and nap time.
It's is little mishaps like this that can totally derail a day or remind a heart about grace and the opportunity for growth and refinement…I’ll admit, my heart was headed in the direction of derailment…getting upset about my mistake and realizing our lack of community…until I realized God’s had was all over our day and even grocery trip…now I’ll try to laugh about the whole fiasco…remember to be grateful for helpful store clerks and remember to NEVER clip my car keys to a grocery cart EVER AGAIN!
Be blessed.
I thought, by the beginning of this story, you were going to say you had locked your keys in the car along with B. I have done that to BOTH of my boys, unfortunately, once in the HOT Texas summer and a very cold winter. So glad you and the kiddos made it home with only a few tears lost by you and A.
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