Lost In The Supermarket

I swear some days it's like I'm 8 years old again and my mother needs to pin my every possession to my clothes for fear of me losing them. Yesterday on the way to work I nearly lost my debit card again, somewhere between removing it from my wallet and putting it into the ATM. How does a card disappear between Step 1. and Step 2.? Luckily it turned up a few minutes later in the back seat of my car (what? huh? what?) and I was able to take out my last $10 to put into the tank to carry my ass to work. But then I made the second mistake of stopping at Walgreens along the way and locking my keys in my car... while the motor is still running. Friends, I have never -- repeat never -- leave my car unmanned with the engine running and whatever possessed me to do it yesterday will forever be beyond human comprehension. But I wound up spending two hours waiting for the locksmith (and the car to run out that last $10 worth of precious petrol) puttering around the Walgreens, which I've decided is something that I'd rather not if ever do again if it ever came down to options.

But I'm an eternal optimist, and I like to see every experience in life as something to learn from. And I learned quite a few things about killing time in your local neighborhood Walgreens:

* If you pace the aisles with your hands in your coat pockets mumbling angrily to yourself, mothers will very quickly pull their children out of your way. Sometimes they'll even clutch them protectively.

* There are things in the freezers. It is hard to determine what these things are exactly because they are heavily coated in a thick layer of "protective ice". All the better to hide the expiration dates, I reckon.

* Do grown women actually read Cosmo? Well, I just did. And I have now learned 101 Ways To Use Your Hands To Let That Handsome Stranger Know You're Interested. And not one of them gave instructions on how to snap a neck in a thousand places with my little pinky. I knew I should have joined the Marines when I had the chance.

* Rule of thumb: Every one of the perfume testers at the Walgreens perfume counter will only make you smell, well, like a Walgreens perfume counter. I can't imagine these poor souls working here coming home smelling like that every night. Then again I guess it beats all the times I came home reeking of nag champa and yesterday's contact-high back when I worked here.

* And as always, no matter where I go, or what I'm wearing, or even what I'm doing, somebody is always going to think that I work there.

Thank Yod I have Thanksgiving off. But of course that means I'm there fresh as a daisy early on the Black Friday morn. Feh. I'm an old pro at this. Lemme at 'em.