A Candy Bar Would Have Been Safer

Today was a "big" grocery shopping day. After lunch I prepared the list, made sure the bags were in the car, and set off for the store.

When I got there, I navigated up and down the aisles putting things from my list into the cart. Since I wasn't hungry I was able to pass by all the impulse items, but when I got to the produce section some gorgeous looking plums caught my eye. Their dark purple skin glistened in the store's fluorescent light. I picked out one that was almost the size of a baseball and put it in my cart to have for a snack on the way home. They were a little pricy, but I justified the cost by telling myself it would be a healthy snack.

I made it through the checkout process, bagged up the groceries, and started pushing the cart out of the store, cradling the plum in my hand so it didn't get lost in the recesses of a bag. When I got close to my car I held up my key fob to unlock the door and lost my grip on the plum. It hit the ground with a thud and rolled under the car. I got down on my hands and knees to try to retrieve it and watched it as it rolled completely under my car, out the other side, and halfway under the car next to mine.

If I wasn't all pumped up to enjoy my fruit I probably would have just left it there, but at that point I had to have the plummy goodness, so I decided to try to retrieve it. I walked around to the other car, got down on all fours again, and tried to snag the plum. That didn't work, so I had to lay down on my stomach and stretch my arm out as far as it would go. The asphalt was hot and gritty, and I hit my head on the side of the car as I maneuvered myself into place.

After I grabbed the prodigal plum I got up and went back to my car. I got settled in the seat, put the key in the ignition, and took a big bite of fruit. It was as good as I thought it would be and worth all the trouble I had to go through. It was finished by time I got out of the strip mall parking lot.