The ultimate shopping cart

I like to shop at Macey's. It is a wonderful grocery store with decent prices. I also like to support them because they are one of the only stores around that is closed on Sundays, but open 24 hours on the other 6 days of the week. They have several neat shopping carts that have a little 'car' attached to the front for the kids to ride in. But they only have a couple of their really neat ones (see picture) that the kids love. So, as I was pulling into my parking spot, I noticed a woman pushing one of these coveted carts to her car. Ah, my opportunity to make my son's day! So, I prepared to patiently wait for her to load her groceries into her car and buckle her kids into her car, then walk over and 'offer' to take her cart so that she wouldn't have to return it to the cart chute. Very generous of me, no? That's what I thought, too.

That was when I noticed two other moms walking across the parking lot in her direction. "Oh, no you don't!" I said to myself, as I got out of my car to claim what was rightfully mine. What ensued was an embarrassing display of three grown women racing each other across a parking lot, while trying not to appear as if they were racing at all. This was a difficult feat, as one of the moms was actually dragging her children behind her. With some determination and the advantage of a closer parking spot, I was the winner of the race and was able to claim the prize.

As I shopped, I felt a mixture of triumph and self-recrimination that I had stooped so low. But the triumph won out because I had a shopping trip with both of my children, during which I did not have to chase Tayson up and down the aisles, replace things that he had pulled off the shelf, or tell him to stop whining because he couldn't get out of the cart. It was glorious!

I'm seriously thinking of submitting this story to the producers of Desparate Housewives as a possible episode script.