And They Found Her After 3 Days, Wandering, Surviving on Granola

target row, originally uploaded by brookem_danno.

I've done it. I've become one of those middle aged ladies wandering the Target parking lot, mumbling to themselves, looking for their car. Yes, that's me. I may have also drooled. And I've discovered that "panic button" so politely placed on my little keyless remote thingie, the one the Saturn salesman said,"You don't want to push this accidentally, it will cause a big racket," that one, Hmmmph. Mine is either a) broken or b) totally decorative. I squeezed. I pushed. I pushed some more, i panicked. I pushed in rapid succession, in patterns, hard, soft. Nada. Not a freaking peep from the car I KNOW I parked here. Or did I? I had fleeting thoughts of terror: jeez, maybe somebody stole it? Yeah, right. Who in their right mind would even want to joy ride in a three-year-old Saturn sedan with empty Gatorade bottles and pretzel crumbs living a second life in the back seat? BUT. It did have a full tank of gas. Maybe it had quarked itself into an alternate universe. Hey, it could happen.

Of course, this all started out as a lark. I got the afternoon off through some amazing convergence of the stars -- I had a printing delivery to make to a client in Lafayette, so the boss said to take the afternoon. I had 45 minutes all by myself in the semi-big city. I listened to that quiet inner voice. All I could hear was that magical siren song, "Tar-jay, Tar-jay." Woohoo! I did have a list, and I only got 17 items including all six listed. Not bad! So I'm totally stocked with the Kashi TLC granola bars I lurrrrve (and yes, I would say something really nice about them daily right here on this here blog for a lifetime supply, oh, Kashi Google bot...) and grape tomatoes and this jiffy keen combo dish brush and dish goo squirter, and brownie mix to make Black Bean Brownies (I KNOW! but I'm open to experiment, and my friend Deb who NEVER makes gross stuff, did them and loved them...)

Okay, so I have all of this stuff, except I can't find the car, and I'm about to turn into a pumpkin, timewise. I walked the four aisles I knew were the neighborhood of the little Saturn beast, and fortunately it turned up out of its alternate universe right where I'd parked it after a small delay, and my debut as crazy shopping cart woman. Heh. Goodbye, youth and coolness, I'm so down the road at this point.

Oh yeah, and isn't this a cool photo of les Tar-jay carts de shopping? I found it on flickr, by brookem_danno!