Everyone is allowed a blonde moment once in a while…

The other day I went to Safeway all gung ho to stock up on groceries. Naturally, I stopped at the grocery cart pile in the parking lot to pick one up. I pulled out my loonie and attempted to release the captive cart. It didn’t work, so I tried again. And again. And… again. Finally, I gave up and just stood there, staring at the cart and the “loonie hole”, wondering why it wasn’t working. I thought I was losing my mind (you know that feeling when you over think something so much that it no longer makes any sense?). I was sure I knew how to get a cart. After staring blankly at the cart for several seconds (I won’t say just how many as it’s actually really humiliating), a Safeway employee (i.e. a young man) came to my rescue. “Can I help you?” He asked (clearly amused). I had basically swallowed all my pride at this point as I was so confused, so I blurted (in an annoyingly chipper voice), “How the heck do these things work?” He looked at me with a smirk on his face, said “a quarter” and then used his little magic tool to release it for me. A QUARTER. Of course.

After trying to hide my embarrassment with some lighthearted laughter (which, in hindsight, probably made me look even more ditsy), I dashed into the store and out of sight of the parking lot dude. From then on, I kept a close eye out for him and was ready to hit the deck at any sighting of him. I was really very embarrassed, and did not want to give him another opportunity to see my face (shameful as it was).

Moral of the story: If the loonie doesn’t work, try a quarter. If the quarter doesn’t work, maybe you failed to notice the complete lack of a hole and use of the cart is free. If you have to think about it too hard about it, turn around and go back home. It's clearly not a day you should be in public. It's a "blonde" day. It happens to the best of us...