Do Me a Favor

I was in the market with Isaiah the other day, checking out the Level 3 Gerber foods (yes, he's chewing already) when I experienced what seems to be a common occurence in many supermarkets. It's happened to me countless times before and, Lord knows, it will happen to me many more times in the future. But I still can't figure it out.

My husband will laugh when reading this because he knows it has been my biggest pet peeve for many, many years. I even remember hating going to the market with my mom when I was a kid, and I think it could be directly related. It's not like the shopping carts require super-human strength to push. And it's not like touching the edges of the store shelves will cause electric shock. So why, I ask, is it so difficult for people to pull their carts over to the right when they are:
1) browsing through items on the shelf?
2) having a casual conversation with a friend they just ran into?
3) drooling on their shirt while staring into space?

I relate grocery shopping to driving. There is a reason why we have road regulations that keep us driving on the right side. Hard as it may be to believe, there are OTHER PEOPLE on the road and I'm guessing that those people need to get somewhere, just like you do. Not to mention that it prevents head on collisions from occuring all the live-long day. You don't get to just weave all over the road, stopping in the middle for no reason. The same should be true in the grocery store.

The best part is that when faced with this situation, after saying excuse me and smiling doesn't work, I may elect to move the other person's cart just enough for me to squeeze by. And it never fails, they look at me like I am the piece of 10 day old gum they found on the bottom of their shoe. Shame on me for wanting to actually want to complete my own shopping.

I realize this may seem petty. But life is short and I really don't want to spend most of it trapped behind your cart while you choose between your two favorite brands of long-grain rice.

It just hit me that we need milk. I think I'll head to the drive-thru dairy.

Thanks for listening.