NO! This can't be happening! For the second day in a row,
A PENNY WAS SNATCHED FROM MY GRASP!
I had popped into Save A Lot for bananas, romaine lettuce, a bag of oranges, and a box of individual bags of assorted chips that The Pony likes. It would have taken a normal person five minutes. My ambulatory speed is more akin to a Galapagos tortoise than a brown hare.
A 20-something dude in jeans and a t-shirt was at the register, unloading his cart. Not much. Just bachelor foods. I didn't do a mental inventory. I was relieved to see the woman with a screaming toddler in her cart, and what appeared to be her adult daughter, veer down the frozen food bins aisle. For a minute, I'd thought they were going to beat me in line.
I turned my cart to wait a respectful distance from T-Shirt Guy. I noticed that Save A Lot has taken the big circles of social distancing off their linoleum. Then I was shocked back to reality when I heard a sound. An unmistakable sound. Then the voice of the cashier.
"Oh! You dropped something."
"Huh?"
"I heard it."
T-Shirt Guy looked around his feet. "OH! It was a PENNY!" He said as he spitefully picked it up and put it in his pocket!
What are the odds, people? What are the odds that I'm out in town and see, TWO DAYS IN A ROW, an incident right in front of me concerning a penny I just missed collecting for my Future Pennyillionaire Fortune? I can only recall a couple of instances where I saw somebody picking up a coin as I drove onto the parking lot. Nothing so close as these incidents the last two days.
When I told The Pony of my misfortune [missed-fortune!], he said,
"Yes, Mother. How DARE that guy have the nerve to pick up his own penny and put it in his pocket."
The Pony may have majored in chemical engineering, but he minored in sarcasm.
I wonder if there's some kind of amulet or symbol I can wear around my neck to ward off Unfair Robert...
I'm surprised the cashier heard it and mentioned it, usually they are all deaf and leave the pennies for you to find. But you can't begrudge him picking up his own dropped penny. It would be different if he looked around on his own and found someone else's dropped penny that might have become yours.
ReplyDeleteBegrudgers gonna begrudge! It was a floor penny! He didn't know the danger he was in! He was like a fawn at the watering hole, and I was the alligator hidden in wait, with only my eyes above the surface of the water...
Delete--:-)
ReplyDeleteThat's me. The alligator, ready to snap.
DeleteAs Snidely Whiplash would say, "Curses, foiled again!"
ReplyDeleteThose six foot markers annoy me, I can figure out six feet. At least the stores got rid of the arrows forcing everyone in one direction, that was a pig stupid idea from day one. Almost as stupid as wearing latex gloves, like if you touch covid with latex gloves and then touch your face it is any different than touching with your bare hands, actually i think the covid spikes latch on to latex better than skin.
Unless you ignore normal "personal space" we've always allowed in the checkout line, and ram a rumpus with your cart, you are six feet away.
DeleteHick taught me to go backwards down the aisle with the arrows pointing the other way than I wanted to go. So it would LOOK like I was heading in the right direction.
How do you take off the second glove without touching it with your bare hand? So you're still touching everything that "protective" glove touched. Just wash your effin' hands!
Maybe you should learn how to shoot fire from your fingers to scare people away from your pennies.
ReplyDeleteThe students had a rumor that I could shoot fire from my eyes. Fingers would be even better! I'd have to cut the tips out of my latex gloves. Oh, wait! I don't wear gloves...
DeleteExcuse me, I saw it fall! Finders Keepers rules apply. The pony should be more sympathetic to the hand that feeds him!
ReplyDeleteIf I was younger and spry-er, I would dive on that penny like a Super Bowl MVP on a goal line fumble! And yes, The Pony should realize who fills his feedbag.
Delete