Saturday, November 05, 2005

The Quarter Ritual

Today, while my darling husband babysat a hundred rotating loads of our drying clothes at the laundromat, I travelled to the nearby No Frills to pick up some groceries.

Like many fine shopping establishments, the carts at No Frills require a 25 cent deposit, which you get back as soon as you attach your cart to another cart. This brings rise to an odd ritual.

Rather than getting a buggy from the group of them near the store, it is the custom charge up to an empy-carted stranger, quarter held out in front of you like a fencing foil. Just as the stranger surrenders the rolling yellow treasure, the attacker hands over the 25-cent weapon.

Okay, I get it. This process saves you having to walk all the way back to the store with your cart. Fine. But consider this: After unloading my groceries in my car, on the other side of the parking lot, I walked all the way back to the grocery store to return my buggy. It wasn't until I was mere centimetres away from the cart return area that a gentlemen initiated the quarter ritual with me. That really takes a load off. Thanks.

4 comments:

Riss said...

Yeah here people just jack you for your cart and you're out 25 cents.

Super Happy Jen said...

Well he did give me the quarter.

zydeco fish said...

You should have said no to the so-called gentleman.

Super Happy Jen said...

I wouldn't go that far. It's just a quarter.

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