Awkward

We had just put Greta down for the evening 

and Alex had schoolwork to do.

I took advantage of the opportunity 

to take a leisurely trip to my happy place ... 

 the one and only ... Target!

I was strolling, 

having myself a gay ol' time in the land of 

everything-is-cute-and-I-must-own-it-even-though-

I-don't-need-it-and-I-bought-the-same-exact-item-last-season-but-in-a-different-color,

and for whatever reason thought it wise to put all my mindless gatherings

in the child seat at the front of the cart... 

you know, the one with two leg holes?

{Can you guess where this is going?}

I was rounding the last corner to peruse my final stretch before checking out,

{I always walk the perimeter with a slight detour for the home aisles},

when I put my cart in reverse a little too swiftly {something must have caught my eye}

and out popped one of Greta's glass baby food jars.

Embarrassed and surprised by the rascally little jar, 

I looked to the nearest person and froze.

Thankfully, he was dad and gave me kind eyes in return to my blushed panic face. 

He sought out a Target employee to help me

since apparently my reaction to spilled baby food is cemented feet.

Two worker-angels came to the rescue and didn't accept my offers for help 

and continued to reassure me that everything was okay in between my incessant apologies.

With shattered glass everywhere,

they brought out a sign to temporarily close the aisle

and handed me a paper towel to clean my foot.

That is when I realized I had glass in my big toe.

When it took me a little longer to wipe up my foot than expected,

one Target angel asked if I was okay.

Mortified and ashamed, I lied and told him I was fine

and then quickly made my exit while they continued to clean.

The one who asked if I was okay,

chased after me to suggest that I remove the other 19 glass baby food jars from the child seat

 and place them safely in the large basket of the cart 

to prevent this situation from repeating itself.

Beet red from such obvious {but appreciated} advice,

I stopped in the aisle again to reorganize my cart.

At this point, I looked down at my toe and realized I was bleeding pretty bad.

Blood was now pooling in the sole of my Chaco sandal and

I was worried that I was leaving a blood trail.

I decided that I would just have to hurry up and checkout 

to prevent the next embarrassing thing, whatever that may be, from happening.

So I started to push my cart with a little more force.

I pushed and pushed but one of the wheels of the cart had stopped working.

I just wanted to escape unnoticed but my disabled cart was drawing all sorts of attention.

My anxiety was now a level 9 and all I could focus on was getting the heck out of Target.

Instead of reaching down and removing the glass shard that was preventing my wheel from turning,

I thought it best to just lift that side of the cart and hobble my way to

 what I will now refer to as the finish line, 

since it was all starting to feel like an obstacle 5K.

Limp-sprinting on three wheels was honestly my best solution to this situation,

and provided me with yet another mortifying moment,

when the Target worker-angel returned to replace my broken jar

with the exact same flavor.

I, of course, thanked him but was so scared he might see my bleeding toe

and realize that I had lied to him,

that I just lifted the front of my cart and wheel barreled my way to the checkout line.

I think it might be a while before I can show my face at Target again.