Posted by
Sandra Lea Wise on Tuesday, August 05, 2008 3:50:24 PM
It has been extremely hot in Texas and yesterday was no exception, it went up to 108. I had to leave the comfort of my air conditioned home and drive to Wal-Mart because I was completely out of food.
Once there, I remembered that I needed a mattress cover. There weren't many in King size, but I found one for $44.95. That was a little more than I had wanted to spend, but it was nice and thick so I went ahead and bought it.
I was dripping wet after packing all my groceries into the car, and walking the shopping cart back to the cart area. It was a little before noon. When I got home, I unloaded the groceries that needed to go into the refrigerator, and went upstairs to shower and change clothes. I could get the rest of my purchases out of the car later. They wouldn't get too hot in the garage.
Late in the afternoon I went back out and unloaded what was left. Around 7 p.m. I was eating dinner when I thought about the mattress cover. I didn't remember seeing it when I was unloading the rest of my purchases. I rushed into the garage, looked in the trunk of my car and to my utter dismay, it wasn't there. That's when I remembered that I had put it on the lower rack of the shopping cart. Oh, no.... I had left it there in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
I put the rest of my dinner in the refrigerator and rushed back to Wal-Mart, feeling very foolish. I didn't think that it would still be there, but I drove by the carts to look anyway. It wasn't. Then I thought that maybe an employee had come out to pick up the carts soon after I had left, and might have turned it in. I didn't have much hope of that, but I got out of the car, went in and told the person up front what had happened. She said that if anyone had turned it in, it would be at the Customer Service desk.
While I was waiting in line, I told two women who were ahead of me what had happened. The younger one said that she had worked at Wal-Mart and suggested that I could say that I had gotten home without it, not mention that I had left it in the shopping cart, and they would probably let me go get another one.
I told her that I wouldn't feel comfortable lying about it, so we started glancing around to see if we could see it. That's when she spotted something in a shopping cart with other items that had been returned.
We went over and looked, and sure enough it was there. I couldn't believe it! As it turned out, a woman had seen the cart with the mattress cover still in it, out in the parking lot, and had taken the cart inside and turned it over to a clerk.
As I was driving home with my mattress cover, I thought about that good woman and said a prayer for her. I couldn't help but have pride in a fellow American who would take the time to do such a thing for someone she didn't even know. Then I realized, she represents the true American. The one who works hard, plays by the rules and shops at Wal-Mart. People like her are the ones that make America great. And, they will be voting in November. Maybe there is hope for the future of our nation after all.
Sandra Lea Wise