Basket Hats and Groceries

You know what's funny? My daughter putting a holiday basket upside-down on her head and modeling it as a hat to cheer me up, without even knowing what was wrong.

You know what's not quite as funny? Leaving $100 worth of food and groceries at the store because your card won't work. I spent an hour and a half picking through things to find the best deals on what I needed, and added on about thirty dollars worth of cat items, because part of my sister's resentment at me living here is that her cats' behavior problems got worse when I moved into the cat room.

Yes, the cats already had problems. However, after overhearing my sister earlier, I decided that I would resolve her cats' problems, in the hopes of ticking her off slightly less with my existence, and perhaps keeping her from being so desperate to get rid of these cats, which she's had for about 8 years now.

Fast-forward again to the checkout line. I used my card. Incorrect pin. Okay, maybe I made a mistake and used my pin from the wrong card. Incorrect pin. I dug out my list of pins, looked to be certain I had the right card to begin with, and made sure to find the correct pin. Because if you get it wrong three times, your card locks, and you're screwed.

Incorrect pin.

I don't know how I got it wrong three times. The cashier and the manager both looked horribly sorry for me, and did their best to offer other solutions. At this point, however, I just wanted to go home. I was, I will admit, near tears to begin with from my sister. I had then gone a little obsessive over choosing just the right everything so that I could solve a problem, feed my daughter, and have enough left over for gas to get me to the doctor on Thursday, and then I had to walk away from it.

I still have some Bisquick and a couple eggs left, so I can make pancakes for dinner tonight, but we won't be having milk with them. Yes, I intend to figure out what the problem with my card is as soon as possible, but I'm not going back to the store tonight.

So this one time, at the grocery store, I saw someone I worked with at the cheese factory, and she said Merry Christmas, because she recognizes me a decade later. That and my daughter's basket-hats have been the highlights of my day.