I got called “Hon” today by a sweet woman in the Fred Meyer’s parking lot. It has been a long time since someone older than me – someone I didn’t know – looked at me as a youngster and called me “Hon.” I really liked it. 🙂

First, a little background: I am one of those customers you sometimes see in store parking lots collecting all the abandoned shopping carts and choo-choo training them into the store – it drives me kind of crazy to see abandoned shopping carts recklessly rolling around without a supervisor. It’s probably the teacher in me.

So what happened today was this: You know how most supermarkets now have two sizes of shopping carts? There’s the jumbo size and the petite size? And you know how there never seems to be enough of the little carts? Well, today I found one abandoned about fifty yards outside the supermarket entrance and thought I would claim responsibility for it, and appropriate it for my own use. The problem was, though, that it had an upright cola can in it – still half full of pop. As things were, I would need two hands to maneuver the cart, and a third hand to hold up the can so it didn’t spill all over everything. I do not happen to have a third hand. I suppose I could have emptied out the pop on the sidewalk or something – but that didn’t seem very polite. An easier solution soon presented itself, though – there was another abandoned little cart there – and, after trying to maneuver the two carts into the store, I did the easier thing today: I transferred my affections over to the soda-less one and proceeded into the store.

I felt a twinge of guilt at leaving that other cart out there, but I decided that today someone else could take responsibility for it.

I did my shopping with my little cart and then grabbed my bags out of it and left it to socialize with all the other carts in the store’s entrance. And wouldn’t you know it? As I was coming out of the store I saw a sweet white-haired older woman pushing the shopping cart with the soda can towards the store. Karma, right? I went up to her and said, “Here, let me get that pop can for you – I think that’ll make it easier for you to maneuver the cart.” She smiled as I picked the can out of the cart and took it to a patch of dirt to empty it, and then dropped it into a bin near the store. This is when the dear woman said, “You’re a nice person. Thanks, Hon!” I sheepishly thanked her – not explaining that I’d encountered the cart before her and had left it there.

Here’s my lesson for today: As soon as I saw that abandoned shopping cart – as soon as I saw the pop can in it – it became my responsibility, didn’t it? I was going to have to deal with it sooner or later. I did get a “Thanks, Hon!” out of it, though. 🙂