DAY AT THE SUPERMARKET

Literally. All day. Not "in" the supermarket, you notice.... "at" the supermarket.

We took our truck to get service: new tires, alignment, and transmission flush. Appointment at 9:00a.m. We were right on time. Pick-up time estimate was noon.

We only have the one vehicle, but figured we could easily kill 3 hours. We ate breakfast at the neighboring McDonald's. Went to Radio Shack, bought an aircard, WHOOPEE, monthly charge but at least we're on the internet again!! After much discussion about said card and various per-month plans at various costs for various numbers of megabytes (or whatever they are), plus looking at cameras (I can never resist,) we had only an hour or so left till the truck should be done, so we hit the grocery store for weekly shopping.

At 12:30, the truck place called and said it would be about another half hour.

Half an hour later, Steve went to get the truck while I went through the checkout line. I took my cart out front and waited.

And waited. I sat on the curb.

And waited. I sat on some bags of water-softener salt.

And waited. I put one foot on the cart and leaned on the handlebar with my elbows.

I'd forgotten my cell phone, so I couldn't call to find out what was happening. After about an hour, I wheeled my cart of paid-for groceries over to the truck place. Steve was there waiting. Apparently something had broken or otherwise gone wrong and they needed a part they'd had to send out for from a branch facility. However, it had been procured and progress was in progress.

There was no place to sit down at the truck place, and the truck wasn't available to load groceries into, so I wheeled the cart back to the supermarket.

And I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

A store employee came out and offered to put my cold and frozen groceries in the cooler. It was fairly cool outside and I was keeping my cart in the shade and had packed it with packaged stuff all around the cold stuff, and I figured Steve would be there any minute with the truck, but I thanked him anyway.

And waited.

I wheeled my cart back into the store and bought a magazine. I took my cart and the magazine out (it was cooler outdoors than in) and read the whole magazine (just a Woman's World, took about half an hour.)

About 3:00p.m. Steve came. On foot. They were still working on it. He watched the cart while I went to the bathroom, then he returned to his post at the truck place and I sat at the store employees' picnic table.

Another employee offered to put my stuff in the cooler. I accepted. I bought a crossword puzzle book and a bottle of water.

Maybe Steve cooked up that story about the delay so I wouldn't think it was odd that he wasn't coming, and he'd really just skipped town.

My cell phone wouldn't have helped, even if I'd had it. "Hi, hon, any news?" "Nope, still working on it." He'd have gotten tired of my calling. Maybe I could have used it to call a neighbor to come get me/us, but the truck could be done any time.

I ate a couple Pop-Tarts out of the cart.

I waited at the grocery store. Steve waited at the truck place. After a while he came over and said he was going to McDonald's. I wasn't hungry, since I'd just eaten Pop-Tarts. And what would we do with the cart while we were in McDonald's?

He went to McDonald's and I waited with the cart at the picnic table.

Guess what time the truck was done?

5:45p.m.

I'd been waiting in front of the supermarket 5 hours. I did a lot of crossword puzzles.