Stupid Thing I Did…

On Wednesday evening (night before Thanksgiving) I had to rent a car because we were driving to Cleveland on Friday and staying overnight. I rented from Enterprise, who picked me up. It was just about “blizzarding” here and a trip that would ordinarily take about 15-20 minutes to make took about 45 minutes because of the snow so I was running late by the time I finished the paperwork for the car. I had originally planned to stop at the grocery store on my way to the evening service at church but I had to re-organize my plans and flip the schedule so that I drove over to the store after church (sort of a pain in the butt because the grocery store is between the rental car place and the church, but what can you do.)

Anyway, the service was nice and I was glad to be there. My new church is located in the middle of a forest preserve basically, so it’s very cozy and wonderful in the night, rustic and natural. After church I hurried through the heavy snow to get over to the grocery store to pick up a boat load of last minute groceries I needed to bake and prepare various items I had planned to bring to my daughter’s for Thanksgiving as well as the dozens and dozens of cookies I’ve been working on for the big cookie sale at my new church.

I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and scurried through the snowflakes into the grocery store. I did my shopping as quickly as possible but it must have taken me about ½ hour for all the junk I needed. Of course I was a little stressed out running behind my original schedule and trying to remember everything I needed. Also, everything cost about three times more than I had planned so I was overwhelmed by that as well. I pushed my heavy laden cart into the snowy parking lot and headed toward the car looking for the chipper little antenna decoration that helps me find my vehicle when I suddenly realized I had the rental car. Oops… now what was it again… crap… I didn’t remember… what color… who knows??? I looked at the keys… what was the license number? I checked it out. Well, I could look at every single license plate in the parking lot. Of course since I knew I would only be going from car to church to car to store, I warn just a shawl and boots with no socks, not even a coat or hat so I was freezing in the pouring wet snow. And I couldn’t even remember in exactly which aisle I had parked. I roamed helplessly with my cart, freezing and frantic. Finally I asked the man collecting carts for the store, “Would you help me find my car?” Explaining the situation, I felt like a moron, but he was so nice and we found it together in less than five minutes. Blessing him, I put the groceries in the trunk and shivered my way into the front seat.

Rarely have I felt so incredibly stupid.