My annual Easter story, aka how I got personally escorted out of the market by the store manager

I’ve blogged about this before, so if you’re an oldtimer, just skim past it.  This is for all the new kids on the block that read my blog and haven’t heard this.

Some of you may not realize that I’m a double amputee, following a bout with meningitis when I was forty-four, and you also may not realize that I have a healthy sense of humor about the whole thing.  Oh my, there are a million stories in the naked city, this is one…

The year was 1995, I was slowly getting my life back and determined to prove to myself that I was “normal” which of course I wasn’t, but I wasn’t ready to admit that quite yet.  The boys were in college, coming home for spring break and I decided to go to the grocery store alone, my first mistake.

I was going to make them sloppy joes for lunch, and being really cocky, I decided that I didn’t need a cart, I could just carry the burger and the buns.  I didn’t have a good sense of balance yet, and I staggered when I walked, but I didn’t need a cart, of course not, sure I didn’t.

So I get a package of buns, trudge on to the meat counter where I pick up the burger, but I decided that I didn’t really want to make them from scratch, so I also picked up a can of Manwich.  Oh, I needed a 2 liter container of soda, I forgot the soda.  So I’m staggering thru the store with all of this in my arms, trying to decide if I could also carry a bag of chips, and by this time I’m starting to get really fatigued, as my energy level wasn’t good yet.

So I’m carrying all of this stuff in my arms, bobbing and weaving and it starts to slip thru my arms.  I know I’m in trouble, I’m trying to keep my balance, and I totally lose it and crash into a display of jelly beans. 

The store had made this huge pyramid of jelly beans, they had repackaged bulk jellies into deli containers, and it was high to the sky on a table.

Well, I fell into the damned thing,  and those containers spilled to the ground, and literally thousands of jelly beans poured out of them onto the floor….

OMG, I was horrified.  There were jelly beans everywhere!  The clerks all came running, with the most gawdawful expressions on their faces, so I quickly went into my poor pitiful pearl routine about how I didn’t have any feet, and I was so sorry and I would pay for all those jelly beans.  Heaven forbid they think I was a drunk with all that weaving going on…

The store manager came up, I was trying to explain to him what happened, while he was hurriedly trying to get me thru the checkout lane. He just wanted me gone!  We cut in front of the other customers, I paid for my groceries (no, he didn’t make me pay for the jelly beans) and then he  escorted me out to and put me in my car!  I remember sitting  in that parking lot, laughing hysterically and  thinking that if I ever got home, I would never go anywhere again in my entire life.

Of course I did, but I must admit it was a couple of years before I had the courage to go back into that market…

And that’s my annual Easter story, I hope it gave you all a smile today….