When I graduated from high school I wanted to become a psychiatrist. Generally, I'm a person people feel safe sharing their secrets with, a never-met-a-stranger type, the kind who start conversations in the check-out line or the waiting room. Although sometimes naive and a little heavier on book smarts than common sense, I tend to be a problem solver by nature.
Sometimes my desire to fix things creates interesting results, like when other customers at Ross ask me questions. Since I'm the one picking up and rehanging clothes from off the floor while the actual employees sit by the dressing room and look disdainfully at shoppers who emerge from the dressing room for the third time without finding a pair of jeans that fit (a hypothetical situation, of course), it's an honest mistake.
Yesterday my fix-it tendencies combined with general lack of social inhibition almost got the best of me. I was in the parking lot at Wal-Mart when I saw a couple pull their cart, loaded with a brand new Sanyo TV, up to their car. First the man tried to load the TV in the back seat, but it was just too big. Then he tried the trunk. No dice. That's when I thought, "Wait! I can help!" My van, the 15-passenger model most often seen as church buses or cargo vans, can haul a sleeper sofa or a queen-size mattress, box springs, frame, and headboard.
At this point the man rips open the box and his wife starts pulling out the Styrofoam packing. Before you know it the TV has been loaded in the back seat, the box is left behind in the cart, and they drive away. That's when I started getting tickled thinking about my first impulse: that "I can fix it" moment. Can you just imagine me going up to these people saying, "I know you don't know me, but would you like me to load up your nice new TV--the one you just purchased with your tax refund--and transport it to your secluded home on the outskirts of town surrounded by woods and large barking dogs? Trust me. I'm here to help."
I think I need a keeper.
Sometimes my desire to fix things creates interesting results, like when other customers at Ross ask me questions. Since I'm the one picking up and rehanging clothes from off the floor while the actual employees sit by the dressing room and look disdainfully at shoppers who emerge from the dressing room for the third time without finding a pair of jeans that fit (a hypothetical situation, of course), it's an honest mistake.
Yesterday my fix-it tendencies combined with general lack of social inhibition almost got the best of me. I was in the parking lot at Wal-Mart when I saw a couple pull their cart, loaded with a brand new Sanyo TV, up to their car. First the man tried to load the TV in the back seat, but it was just too big. Then he tried the trunk. No dice. That's when I thought, "Wait! I can help!" My van, the 15-passenger model most often seen as church buses or cargo vans, can haul a sleeper sofa or a queen-size mattress, box springs, frame, and headboard.
At this point the man rips open the box and his wife starts pulling out the Styrofoam packing. Before you know it the TV has been loaded in the back seat, the box is left behind in the cart, and they drive away. That's when I started getting tickled thinking about my first impulse: that "I can fix it" moment. Can you just imagine me going up to these people saying, "I know you don't know me, but would you like me to load up your nice new TV--the one you just purchased with your tax refund--and transport it to your secluded home on the outskirts of town surrounded by woods and large barking dogs? Trust me. I'm here to help."
I think I need a keeper.
Labels: my life in a nutshell
7 Comments:
Well, it's the thought that counts.
My thought, after they'd driven off, would have included, "Who is going to take care of the cart and the box they left behind in the parking lot?" And I would have driven away, feeling guilty for not doing it.
Haha! I hope you are close by when I have a similar situation!
First of all, why DIDN'T you stop and ask us if you could haul it home for us? Seriously, we did that EXACT SAME THING a little over a year ago when we just had our Maxima (and just Abby) and that TV looked like it would SO fit in the trunk. Well, it didn't fit in the trunk and wouldn't go into the back seat, so out of the box it went and into the back seat, where I almost broke my pinky finger in the process of wedging it next to Abby's car seat. We aren't good planners.
Of course we didn't just leave the box behind though...we threw it in the nearest dumpster, crossing our fingers that there was nothing wrong with the TV.
Secondly, I have boycotted ever going to Ross again. I can't stand it when I am doing more work there than the people who are paid to be there. And I always have to stand in a line a million miles long while the "workers" are standing around the one register open, talking about how "Bubba did his gurl wrong". I won't go there ANYMORE!
Wow, this is long enough to be my own blog.
You crack me up girl. Too funny.
At least your heart was in the right place. I'm pretty sure you do have a keeper! Those angels probably crack up at the things they must rescue you from. :) Glad you weren't put in a sticky situation!
Where were you when I bought that grill at Christmas? :>)
I am a lot like you. My husband says that anyone will talk to me because I have that "look" on my face. He doesn't have the "look." Well, he has A look, but it says,"Leave me alone. Talk to my wife."
Truly funny. I actually did ask someone once if she wanted me to hold her little girl while she did something that required two hands...Then I realized (when she looked at me a certain way) that I probably seemed like a kidnapper guised as an understanding mom. Oops.
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