24 December 2014

drop

My mom and I both woke up in the scratchy throat stage of a cold, so when we stopped at T@rget, I picked up some cough drops. It was a big bag of generic cherry ones, and I popped one in my mouth as we left the store.

I put the bag back into the cart, into a plastic bag containing my mom or sister's purchases. 

As we neared the car (my mom has a newer car, so she parks at the far end of the lot far from everyone else), I heard a funny little plop. 

I looked down, and the bag of cough drops had fallen over and about 25 of them had spilled into the cart. From there, they were falling one by one through the holes in the cart. A few had collected above the wheel on a little metal piece a few inches above the ground. A few more had been lost along the way. 

A. and I started collecting all the cough drops from the cart and the nearby ground. Our mom went running back to pick one up off the pavement a dozen feet back. 

We ate the damp ones (from the ground) immediately, or I stuck them in my coat pocket. The rest went back into the bag.

As I went to put the cart in the cart corral, I saw, far off toward the door of the store, another cough drop lying wrapped on the ground.  A car ran over it as I watched. I did not go rescue that one.

No comments: