The Basket Case: The Tale of the Absent-Minded Almost Thief

I need a chaperone when I go to Target.

Not because I am going to have my way with the first stockboy who gives me a second look, but because I enter intending to spend $20 and exit with my bank account at least $100 lighter. 

I need someone to make sure I don’t buy everything in the place.

On this particular visit to the Hundred-Dollar Store, I was somewhat disciplined.  I bought two gifts and the requisite cards.  I bought some make-up because my foundations and lipstick are cosmetic Petri dishes. 

And, of course, some groceries.

Also, because I was so famished I feared I might black out while driving and wrap my car around a lamppost, I decided to get myself a yogurt.  Ever the logician, my sleep-deprived, blog-obsessed little brain found it wise to put the majority of items in the child seat, and to stash my perishables -- fruit and yogurt -- in the bottom of the ocean-liner sized cart.  

I arrived at the checkout counter feeling pretty fricking proud of myself.  It had been a model trip.  My bill came to less than $100.  The only fail was leaving my tote bags in the car, necessitating plastic bags, i.e. vessels for poopy diapers.

Feeling almost drunkenly self-congratulatory, I pushed my cart to the parking lot and stowed my wares in the trunk.  Did I mention I had also scored a parking spot next to the cart return thingie?   

This trip had been an effing dream.

Purchases loaded and cart returned, I sat down in my seat and merrily prepared to take out my yogurt.  I had even remembered to get a spoon! 

But my Greek yogurt was nowhere to be found.  What the?  I became instantly incredulous and outraged. 

Oh hell no!  That b---h did not pack my yogurt!

Wait.  I unloaded the cart.  I put my berries and yogurt in the back.  Maybe they are

still there. 

Why did the sensor never beep?  Can I eat them anyway?  Can I just stick it to The Man?  I’m hungry and I spend 1000s of dollars here, can’t I just take them?

No.

Because that’s called stealing. 

Should I go back and pay for them? 

No.  You are already late to pick up Lady A from your Mom’s and don’t have time to wait in line.  And do you really want to raise eyebrows with some true, yet cockamamie story? 

But I’m hungry!

C’est la vie.  Oh, I think I see Karma coming!  

So, famished enough to eat the errant playground wood chips littering the floor of my car, I left the berries and yogurt where they were and drove away, feeling simultaneously virtuous, as well as cursed and stupid.

What would you have done?  Please let me know.  And while you’re at it, please find me a chaperone.

Epilogue:  Let no good deed go unpunished. The lipstick I bought is MISSING.