I Refused to Argue With a Woman Over a Shopping Cart, but When I Finished Shopping, I Found My Car Damaged
Until now.
I looked up.
And I spotted her.
She was standing about sixty feet away. At the end of the next row. Next to a white Buick LaCrosse with the trunk open.
Fifties. Bleached blonde hair teased up high. Big sunglasses pushed up on her head. A purple velour tracksuit. Gold hoops.
The same woman.
The woman from the cart corral.
She was watching me.
And she was smiling.
When our eyes met, she laughed.
Out loud. I could hear it across the parking lot. A short, sharp, satisfied laugh.
She raised one hand.
And she waved.
That’s when I decided she was going to learn a very harsh lesson about consequences.
I left my groceries where they were.
And I started walking straight toward her.
But I need to back up.
To forty-five minutes earlier.
My name is Amanda Pruett. I’m thirty-four years old.
I’m an art teacher at Pershing Middle School in Springfield, Missouri. I teach six periods a day of seventh and eighth graders. Clay. Watercolor. Charcoal. I spend most of my day getting acrylic paint out of the carpet and telling thirteen-year-olds that yes, abstract art is real art, and no, you can’t just draw a circle and call it done.
I’m married to Jake. He’s a mechanic at a Ford dealership on Glenstone. We’ve been married eleven years.
We have two kids. Josie, who’s nine and wants to be a marine biologist even though we live eight hundred miles from the ocean. And Ben, who’s six and wants to be a dinosaur.
Last Saturday, I stopped at the Walmart on Battlefield Road to buy groceries.
Just a normal Saturday. Jake had the kids at a birthday party at the trampoline park. I had two hours. I’d made a list. I always make a list. My father taught me that. A man without a list buys three things he doesn’t need and forgets the one he went for.
I parked in my usual spot. Row F. Near the cart return. I always park near the cart return so I don’t have to walk my cart across the whole lot.
I walked to the entrance.
There were carts lined up in the corral outside the doors. Twenty of them, maybe. Nested together in two long rows.
I grabbed the one on the end.
“Excuse me!”
The voice came from behind me. Sharp. Loud.
“That was MY cart!”
I turned around, completely confused.
A woman was standing about six feet away. Fifties. Bleached blonde. Purple velour tracksuit. Big gold hoops. Sunglasses on top of her head.
She was glaring at me.
At my hand. On the cart.
I looked at the cart. Then at the corral. At the other nineteen identical carts nested right beside us.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Were you reaching for this one?”
She rolled her eyes.
Hard. Like a teenager.
“I was walking toward it,” she snapped. “I was walking right toward it. And you just grabbed it. Right in front of me.”
“I didn’t see you,” I said. “I’m sorry. There are plenty of—”
“You selfish little brat!” she said. 