Yesterday I did a bad thing. I tell this story partially as a confession, but mostly as a public service announcement. I normally do not do things like I did yesterday, but it's just where I'm at right now.
The Target in Athens has been on the up-and-up lately. It recently upgraded to having luxury shopping carts, and yesterday it opened its grocery section. Now the Athens' Target is essentially a Super Target without the title. I go to Target way too often. Every time we browse through the aisles of Target Grayson wants a snack. This is probably due to the Pavlovian training I have done with Grayson. Every time Grayson sits in the red shopping cart he inevitably receives a snack to keep him busy so I can shop. His snack is usually a Kashi bar. Since the grocery section was open yesterday I decided to branch out and go for some fruit. I hate the idea of not washing fruit before eating, but sometimes it's fun and practical to just dive in.
I pulled a plastic carton of strawberries off the shelf and offered one to Grayson. He did not want strawberries. I put the strawberry back in the carton and put the carton in our cart, accepting that I would have to buy the strawberries since I touched one. I then grabbed a carton of blueberries. Grayson went as far as to hold a blueberry in his toddler germ-caked fingers, but then decided he did not want blueberries. He wanted the blackberries he spotted on the shelf. Somehow I justified putting the carton of blueberries back on the shelf for someone else to buy. I don't know why it was okay for me to replace the blueberries but not the strawberries. I justified putting the blueberries back by the fact that Grayson had not held the blueberry that long and everyone should practice good public health and wash their fruit anyway, even though I was not practicing good public health by returning the fruit. Hypocritical, I know, but I had a friend with me who validated my idea for returning the blueberries. the peer validation made me think that everyone returns touched fruit to the shelf.
As if my confession about returning the touched blueberry carton to the shelf was not enough, this cautionary tale continues. Target is running a BOGO this week: buy one home item, get one half off. I have never seen Target run a BOGO, so it's kind of a big deal. We were browsing the home section, Grayson was devouring the blackberries by the fistful. Everything was moving along lovely when Grayson decided to balance the carton of strawberries on the edge of the cart. Rather, Grayson attempted to balance the carton of strawberries on the cart. The strawberries came crashing down, and every single strawberry flew across the floor of the home section. My friend and I quickly gathered all the strawberries, some leaving juice on the floor, all the while debating what we should do with the tainted carton. Leave the carton randomly on a shelf in home section and quickly walk away? No, that's rude. Throw it out? No, is that stealing? Put the strawberries back on the shelf where I found them? No, never. Buy the strawberries but throw them away? No, that's wasteful. Buy the strawberries and wash them thoroughly?I guess so.
I decided to bite the bullet and buy the strawberries. I continued to cruise through the aisles of Target for about ten minutes after the strawberry fiasco. Each time I put something new in the cart I looked at the strawberries and had pre-buyer's remorse. I really did not want to deal with the dirty strawberries. I know so much fruit is filthy - the blackberries Grayson chowed down were covered in who knows what - but I have not never bought fruit I knew was on the floor. As I was making my way to the cashier I had an admittedly low moment. I rolled over the grocery section and I replaced the strawberries on shelf. I placed them in the back of the other strawberry cartons, thinking that this was a more noble thing to do, since they could potentially rot before someone could buy them. At the end of the day, though, someone could easily buy the carton of strawberries that were so helplessly lying on the Target floor.
Moral of the story, wash your fruit because there are public health terrorists out there like me.
Do you have any terrorist stories of your own? Or am I the only low-life?
