No Cause for Alarm

Have you ever had some of those days when you feel like the ball, in a pinball machine? For some time now things around here have been too calm and uneventful. That is until recently.

Last week we were around the stores (four of them) looking at 5x8 area rugs. Of course we couldn’t agree on a pattern or price, so came home empty handed a number of times.

I should tell you that lately when we go into the store, the carpet area in particular, we appear to get funny looks from the staff, or else it’s my imagination. Anyway that’s how it feels, as the hairs on the back of my neck start to tingle.

I forgot to mention that in her eagerness to examine every rolled up carpet in the store, Elizabeth has a wrestling match, eventually managing to pin every carpet with a fall in the aisle! Believe me, everything falls down and it looks like a bomb hit the place. After a half baked attempt to correct the situation, we sneak furtively away and leave things for the store assistants to sort out. You get the picture.

The other day we had a great day, at least we thought so. We had settled the carpet fiasco a day or so prior, so didn’t have to worry about that anymore. So out we went again and ventured into the uncharted waters of a huge new mall complex. Hiking boots and a good quality leather back pack were the intended shopping victims for the day.

We do seem to get ourselves into some situations at times, well the wife does, and she belongs to me so we’re it!

We didn’t get the boots that day but the back pack was a real beauty!
Or was until one of the zippers went a few days later. I will spare you the wails of anguish accompanied with the pain. Talk about panic stations!

First we tried to fix the zipper but quickly realized that we were out of luck there. Next thought was obviously lets get a return, or better, an exchange. That’s when Elizabeth paled somewhat as she told me she had that very morning dumped the cash register receipt into the garbage! Mission impossible now was to recover the receipt, so you know what that entailed.

Fortunately for us they have quite a sophisticated garbage set up here, so at least we wouldn’t have to go through mountains of crap.

As it was there was the wife up to her armpits sifting through the bags looking for our bag of litter. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever see her doing that.
Believe me the relationship between Elizabeth and her new leather bag is a torrid affair, so nothing was going to stop her from getting that receipt back!

I could see she had been successful when she came back with a triumphant smile on her face, albeit a little mussed up.

The following step was pretty dull after all the excitement and panic. A trip to the store, a few nice words with the assistant and out came the wife smirking all over her face and brandishing her new bag.

On the way home we called in at the carpet store. They had some smaller rugs on sale to match the carpet we bought earlier, so we picked one up. ~

At our apartment we are lucky, not only do we have the elevator, but they have a shopping cart to help carry the loot the upstairs.

The elevator is not overlarge, so when we get the cart in there plus me with my walker it gets somewhat congested. Today we were going upstairs in the elevator when Elizabeth decides she wants to turn the cart around ready to get off at our floor, that’s when the fun began, again!

In turning she somehow caught the emergency button with the buggy, which dials for help, thus setting the alarms in motion! Elizabeth’s first words were “Wow! The shopping cart is the exact same height as the alarm button!”

To our horror there didn’t seem to any way to shut this thing off! ~ Yeah, you got it. We hightailed it out of there as if the place was on fire, thankfully nobody answered the call this time. Never a dull moment where we are I can tell you!


C’ya