This last week my eldest daughter celebrated her 14^th birthday. Grandma has been out visiting also, and has been with us to help in the planning and preparation for the birthday party. We have been frequenting a variety of different stores together, buying paper goods, décor items, snacks, candy, food, a cake and a piñata.

On Friday we went to our neighborhood market to order a cake at their bakery. After we placed the order, we decided to browse through their produce section; I wanted to purchase some fruit to make a fresh fruit salad for the celebration.

Since we were browsing without a written shopping list, my two daughters and I tended to flit away from our shopping cart. We would wander off to inspect a fruit or vegetable display and then return again to the cart. I was busy selecting some cantaloupe, when my daughter, MG, spotted some cucumbers on sale:

“Oh, Mom, can I get some cucumbers? I want to make cucumbers and lemon juice.”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Can I get six? They’re three for a dollar.”

“Do you think we’ll need that many?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“OK.”

She left the cart to retrieve the cucumbers. I left the cart at the same time in another direction to study the spice wall; I was looking for a package of cinnamon sticks. My second daughter, PX, took it on herself to be “shopping cart monitor”; she didn’t want our cart to be unattended, so she pushed our cart towards me in order to overtake me at the spice wall.

MG returned with a bag of cucumbers and one more request:

“I checked out the lemons. They’re four for a dollar. May I get some?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

So MG left for the lemon display and I turned my attention again to the spices. I was deciding which package of cinnamon sticks were the best price and how many I really needed to purchase when MG returned. In her right hand, held up in front of her at arm’s length, was a clear produce bag containing two packages of pistachio nuts.

“Guess what I did!” she blurted out.

“What?” I answered as I glanced at the pistachio nuts. (She said she was going to get lemons, but she brought back a bag of pistachio nuts. I was a little confused. But she was continuing her story.)

“I got the lemons,” she said. Then she smirked sheepishly and added,
“But I thought our cart was over there.” She pointed behind her.
“And I put the lemons in someone else’s cart!” she finished.

She was a bit embarrassed at her mistake; and she was amused and laughing.

Then I asked the next logical question,
“Why do you have a bag of pistachios in your hand?”

What a surprise!…for my daughter.

She looked at that bag, suspended from her own hand, as if it were a space alien. Then, convulsed with embarrassment and laughter, she turned on her heel, made a beeline to a shopping cart that was “over there”, plopped the bag of nuts into the cart and recovered her misplaced bag of lemons from the same cart. She followed that action with a mumbled apology to a bewildered older lady who obviously belonged to the cart.

MG returned to our cart. She carried a bag of fresh lemons, a smile on her face and beautifully flushed cheeks adorned with a full regiment of furious blushes.