May 14th, 2020

Mayhem and injury via grocery cart. So much so social distancing eh?  I'm not sure how big a grocery cart is but I'm pretty sure it's not six feet.

Here's what happened.  I was at our local farm market which is not a road side stand but more of an actual grocery store with walls, floors and doors, aisles and grocery carts (obviously).  The carts are smaller than regular standard grocery carts but otherwise the same. Mini-carts.  They make up for their mini-ness by having an upper and a lower deck.  They are absolutely perfect for farm market shopping.

Especially this farm market. It's a very popular place.  The food is all locally sourced, reasonably priced and of excellent quality. But the building itself isn't really big enough to contain all of it's wonderfulness and the customers.  One or the other on it's own, fine. But together it really is a squeeze. Even in normal times.

I try to offset that by going at unusual times.  First thing in the morning maybe (I mean as they are unlocking the doors) or toward the end of the day when all sensible people are home eating dinner.  But that isn't always possible.   I wasn't too worried about any crowds because well first of all, almost everyone here masks.  We just do.  And most everyone is fairly courteous about keeping some distance now. We have become accustomed to it and therefore we do it almost automatically.  And this isn't high season with loads of tourists and snowbirds.  Sooo there were things we needed at the market and off I went with my mask and every intention of staying as far away from other people as humanly possible in such a small space.

It happened right around the tomato sectione. I was standing next to my cart, perusing the tomatoes (with my eyes only!!) and someone crashed into the back of me but at an angle so that my foot was now trapped between the carts and my own cart jammed into the display. Shocked,  I looked down at my sandaled foot which was entangled then I looked up at the cart driver who was utterly oblivious.  How do you not know that you crashed into someone else?  How is that even possible?

"Excuse me" I said.  But of course my voice was a little muffled by my mask.  "(ahem) Excuse me, sir" I said again louder.  Nothin'.  I didn't want to touch him to get his attention.  But it was really starting to hurt so, even though it hurt even more to do so,  I wiggled my foot first out of the sandal and eventually free of the carts.  But I had to raise my foot so high to extricate it (remember the double decker carts) that I had to lean backwards a little bit, which put me off balance and required a couple of quick hops to right myself.  And I hopped right into one of the managers at the market. Dang!  "I'm so sorry" I said to him at the exact same time that he said, "Are you ok?" to me.  I reached down for my shoe while assuring him that I was fine and he was assuring me that he was fine.  

Meanwhile the cart crasher vanished.  Mysteriously, as soon as the manager appeared, the cart crasher was gone.  It could have been a co-incidence I suppose, but an odd one don't you think?

So all is well, or so I thought, and I finished my quick little shop.  By the time I was in line to check out, I glanced down at the back of my ankle and saw that it didn't just hurt, it was bleeding. Well Dang it again.

Once I got home, I patched myself up and everything is fine. I mean my foot didn't become gangrenous and fall off or anything. But I'm still annoyed by the cart crasher.

If it was an accident, isn't it just polite to apologize?  If it was intentional, then what the actual hell?  Has this virus thing gotten people so crazy and frustrated and angry that they go around inflicting damage upon other people (or their stuff) just to express themselves?  Or if this person truly had no idea (how could you not realize that?) that they not only crashed into me but literally trapped my foot in the process, how oblivious must they be in the rest of their lives?

Oh well, lots of questions and zero answers here.

I do know that, at least before this whole virus thing started, the farm market was looking to either purchase a larger building or build one and everyone in this little town cheered when they heard this news.  I have no idea if that is still going to happen now or not.  I guess I still stick to early morning or late afternoon visits from now on.  Let that be a lesson to me!