Yesterday I went shopping for groceries, as I often do. It is important to buy groceries, because eating is a socially accepted norm and hunger is often questioned with “why don’t you eat something?” Without groceries, the answer is usually “let’s get some delivery.” I then eat an entire pizza and lie topless on the couch, stomach bulging like an alien trying to escape, me regretting every decision that led to this point.

I always return my cart. Since I used it, I feel that I should return it. It’s a nice gesture and opens up parking spaces so that people can park in the four spots that they feel their car requires.

Apparently not everyone in my town agrees in my cart return policy. As I’m bringing my cart back to the return stand, I find another. I think “well, I can’t let this cart hang out here and watch me bring his buddy back,” so I grabbed it, fit the two together in a passionate embrace, and pushed them both.

Along the way, there’s a cart sitting right in the middle of a parking spot. I cheerfully grab it as well, pulling it along behind me. And then another, until i’m pulling four carts.

I get to the cart return and put them in, rolling them down the line like I’m bowling for…well…carts. A man in a dress shirt, black tie, and yellow name tag calls to me. I ignore him. He calls to me again. And again. He’s walking toward me, so I change my mind and walk toward him. It must’ve been the tie. I was psychically tied by the power of his tie. What power! What grace! Who cares that his name tag was crooked and his shirt had pit stains. He was truly a master of all he surveyed.

“Where’s your uniform?” He asks.

“I don’t work here.”

“And your name tag?” He adds, clearly listening only to himself, the way that people in dress shirts, black ties, and ugly yellow name tags do. Listening skills are not a prerequisite for his career path.

“I don’t work here.”

“I should write you up.”

I can’t help myself. “Please don’t, sir. I’ll do better next time.”

He smiles. He thinks that he has achieved some masterful victory. “I’ll let you go this time. But go home and get your uniform.”

“Good, because I have ice cream in the trunk, and I don’t want it to melt.”

The moral of the story?

If you’re going to do a good deed, don’t have ice cream in the trunk.