Keep Your Eye On the Ball

Today I drove two miles to the nearest supermarket for dishwasher detergent. I ran out of it yesterday and thus my dishwasher spent the night full of dirty dishes, including some from last night's dinner. Thinking about all the food stuck on all the dishes for hours and hours makes me crazy, but fortunately it's a rare occurrence, happening only once before about 25 years ago. Anyway, I arrived at Shaw's and headed straight for the stuff, then meandered around picking up this and that so as not to make the trip just for one thing.

After placing all the items onto the conveyor belt, I glanced outside to see if it had started to rain yet. That's where I made my mistake. I looked away, making the reckless assumption that the check-out lady would scan all the items in my order and that everything would end up in my shopping bag. I paid with confidence and left.

Once home I unpacked everything in the shopping bag but found no dishwasher detergent, the one item I had gone out to buy. This realization made me burst into tears, not only because people are all assholes but because my friend Debra is dead and has been for the past month and always will be. So I got back in my car, drove back to the store, and brought the same damn package of dishwasher detergent once again to a checkout lady. But this time I watched the whole procedure, from beginning to end.

You just can't trust anyone to do anything right these days. Like Debra, who went through a stop sign.