
After watching Lucy for a week, she came home crying, and that made me angry in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. Mrs. Carpenter, our arrogant neighbor, had declined to give Lucy money, dismissing it as a “life lesson.” I was determined to set things right, so I came up with a scheme to make sure Mrs. Carpenter had her own lesson. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Lucy staggered through the front door. Alarms went off at the sight of her crying, something she did not often do. My heart fell when I saw how completely defeated my normally calm daughter appeared. “Lucy?
” I hurried over and put my hands there.With tears streaming down her cheeks, Lucy staggered through the front door. Alarms went off at the sight of her crying, something she did not often do. My heart fell when I saw how completely defeated my normally calm daughter appeared.”Lucy?” I hurried over and put my hands on her shaky shoulders. “What took place?” She wiped away her tears and shook her head at first, unable to say anything. I helped her to the couch so she could collect herself. At last, she let forth a tremulous whisper. “Mom, she refused to pay me.”Who wouldn’t give you money? I inquired, perceiving the direction this was going. “Mrs. Carpenter,” Lucy cried with a fresh tear in her eye. She claimed that it was a “life lesson” and that I ought to have received it in writing. She also didn’t give me any money.My heart raced. “That’s what she said?”
So I am at Walmart scanning and bagging my almost $300 worth of groceries while the employee that wants $15 an hour “monitors” and then this happened.

So I am at Walmart scanning and bagging my almost $300
So I am at Walmart scanning and bagging my almost $300 worth of groceries while the employee that wants $15 an hour “monitors” and then this happened.
Her – why are you double bagging all of your groceries?
Me – excuse me?
Her – you are wasting our bags!
Me – if you don’t like the way I’m bagging the groceries, feel free to come on over here and bag them yourself.
Her – that’s not my job!
Me – okay, then I will bag my groceries how I please if that’s all right with you.
Her – why are you using two bags?!
Me – because the bags are weak and I don’t want the handles to break or the bottoms to rip out.
Her – well that’s because you are putting too much stuff in the bag. If you took half of that stuff out and put it in a different bag then you wouldn’t need to double bag.
*10 seconds of me just staring at her.
Me – so you want me to split these items in half and put half of them in a different bag so that I don’t have to double bag.
Her – exactly.
Me – so I would still be using two bags to hold the same number of items.
Her – no because you wouldn’t be double bagging.
*me pressing two fingers to my left eye in an attempt to make it stop twitching.
Me – okay so here I have a jug of milk and a bottle of juice double bagged. If I take the milk out and remove the double bagging and just put the milk in the single bag and the juice in that single bag I’m still using two bags for these two items.
Her- no because you are not double bagging them so it’s not the same number of bags.
*me looking around at about 10 other customers who at this point are enjoying the show.
Me- is this like that Common Core math stuff I keep hearing about?
Her- never mind you just don’t get it.
And with that, she went back to her little Podium so she could continue texting or playing games on her phone or whatever it was she was doing before she decided to come over and critique my bagging skills.
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