I took this picture at 8:00 am at the grocery store when I headed there straight from the morning school drop off. Turns out, that’s a fun time to run into people you know and chat, but not a good time for shopping because they were low on food.  By “low” I mean, the produce section was empty. 

Later in the day, I can find fruits and veggies, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to get to.  There will always be someone stocking something, and an abadoned cart, and a giant car cart with two kids and no parent around.  So I have gotten trapped in certain sections before.  But this particular time, the problem was that the produce guy was 100% blocking the avocados.  I figured this was actually a win for me because I could just ask him to hand me a ripe one.  Save myself some time and trouble.  I said, “Hello.  Can you please hand me the ripest avocado?”  He said. “Well, none of them are that ripe. But here, this one is the ripest one here.”  I said, “Oh, thanks!  Maybe I’ll just wait to use this tomorrow.”  Or something else totally cool and normal.  And then, for reasons that cannot be explained to this day, I jauntily tossed the avocado in the air and tried to catch it.  Tried.  Tried and missed, but knocked it back into the air.  There was nothing cool and jaunty about me anymore, because I screamed when I missed the avocado.  Well, screamed might be a bit exaggereated.  It was more like a really loud yelp.  I didn’t catch it on the second or third try either,  but maybe by the fifth time, when I had gotten the attention of the entire produce section with my yelping and my juggling, I finally grabbed ahold of the damn thing and then I had my big finish.  I raised both hands in the air, one holding the precious avocado and I said to the 8 or 9 people staring at me, “I caught it!!!!  Wooohooo!!!”  And I looked around for high fives, but everyone quickly looked away in fear, dismay, and maybe embarrassment.  Possible pity.  I think I saw one person staring intently at a tomato and laughing.  At me, or with me, I will take what I can get.

This is the first intallment of my Monday series designed to brighten your week with a light story about something embarrassing I have said or done. Let me know if it helps you get through your day and I will try to keep it up.  I have a quite the backlog of stories.