16 February 2014

Kindness: Part 3

Most of the time I enjoy grocery shopping with my kids.  I don't enjoy grocery shopping with tired and cranky children.  But if I plan well, time things right, and don't try to hurry, we can generally have a good time at the store together.  We have a good time smelling all the flowers and looking at the neatly piled heads of lettuce and picking the largest bunch of bananas we can find.  We always buy bananas.  I don't like bananas at all.  I am decidedly outvoted.  I haven't eaten a banana in years, but I have purchased dozens weekly since my oldest first started eating solid food.

When we just need eggs and milk (and bananas) we shop at Aldi.  It's kind of a fun little store.  And it makes me smile that when we get to the parking lot my little redhead knows exactly where we are.  "Mama, we are going to buy milk and eggs!"  One of my favorite things about shopping at Aldi is that the shopping carts have two seats in the front.  It is so convenient to have my kids sitting next to each other sharing a package of fruit snacks.  Actually, the shopping carts are pretty much the entire reason that I shop there.  If they had a bigger selection I wouldn't ever shop anywhere else.  If any other grocery store in my area ever decides to offer double seated carts I will become a loyal costumer.

Aldi has one of those fancy cart contraptions near the entrance to the store where you pay a quarter to get a cart.  When you return the cart you get a quarter back.  The last time we shopped at Aldi we parked kind of far away.  A gentleman parked sort of near me had just returned his cart.  He came back to his car and saw me with a child in each arm.  Instead of getting in his car and driving off, he went back to the front of the store and got a cart for me.  He met me in the parking lot and patiently held the cart to make sure it wouldn't roll down the hill while I loaded both kids.  He gave them each a high five and wished us a good day.

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