The Incident

On Tuesday night I went to the store and bought three things. As I was coming to the front of the store and turning in front of the endcap, I heard things falling. Thinking I was the cause of this, I steered further out to stop hitting whatever. However, things escalated and bottles fell right on top of my head and shoulders. I could hear glass breaking. I gunned the electric cart to escape.

Remember, this is an electric grocery cart, the slowest in town. It goes maybe 1 mph. So, gunning it was not a great thing. It just goes less slowly.

People were yelling in alarm and moving about and I could not escape whatever was happening to me. I actually thought the others were in distress, too. Finally, a guy loudly told me to STOP because I was hooked to the rack!  What rack? Since I could feel glass shards in my thin coat and on my skin, I got off that cart faster than I ever have. I was so upset.

So, picture this. At this store all the electric carts have arms that can be raised or lowered into place to allow entrance and egress, access to the cart. When I get into the cart, I have had employees lower the arms. When I object, I am told they will keep me from falling out. Okay, imagine my reaction.

Tuesday night, I got into one of those carts with the handle/arm down. However, it appears someone did not raise the arm because the arm was pushed outward about ten inches to the side. This allowed the arm to hook into the metal rack that had at least four dozen bottles on it. The combination of a rack in the floor right at the corner and an arm in the wrong position caused the catastrophe. I DID have the cart far from the rack as I rounded the corner.

At least a half dozen employees and the manager rushed in to clean it all up and leave an empty rack. In the meantime, I was shaking from the fright of bottles crashing down on me. I removed one shard from my arm above my wrist and shook my coat. At home I found more sand-size glass in my arm and coat.

Whew!

As I left, I signed my receipts from that night and stuffed them into a box for a drawing for the $100 certificate. (I made one purchase and went back for another item before I left the store.) This was about 9 pm. At 8:30 the next morning, Wednesday,  I received a call from the store. I was confused, thinking I was in trouble. No, I won the $100 gift certificate.

Thinking about it later, I am surprised they did not just draw another name since they know who I am.

It took several hours before I calmed down after the terror of trying to escape falling bottles and causing more to hit the top of my head!!!

(By the way, I tell this better than I write it. People are  in stitches when I tell this.)