My friend Murphy

Sometimes I have days where I feel like a walking catastrophe.

I seem to have issues at a local supermarket. It's kind of a smallish store, but very close to where I live and a convenient place to go, even if they don't always have the best prices. A couple of weeks ago, I knew some friends of mine were here from out of town - and she and her husband wanted to get together with my family and a couple other friends. I planned a get-together at a local park, so that everyone's kids could run around on the playground and we could eat and catch up.
I called this local grocery store a couple of days before the picnic and ordered a tray of sandwiches. I figured it would be much easier to just buy some chips and drinks and everyone could build their own sandwich. I was on the phone with the girl for quite a while as I decided on meats and cheeses and condiments. She assured me that everything would be ready by 5pm on the day of my picnic. I doublechecked the date and time with her and hung up.
On the day of the picnic, we'd decided to meet at around 5:30 which I figured would give me just enough time to get off work, pick up the sandwiches, and head to the park.
I got off a bit early and headed to the store, filled my cart with drinks and paper plates and chips and headed over to the deli section to get my sandwich tray.
I gave my name to the girl, and by the deer-in-headlights look that she gave me, I knew something was wrong. She went back to check and came out with bad news written all over her face. There was no sandwich tray. I told her who I'd spoken to, and she checked with the other deli workers...nobody had seen a sandwich tray get made and it was nowhere to be found.
The manager then came over to see what the problem was....
ahem, anyway....
He looked concerned and asked what time my party was....I told him that I had about 20 minutes to figure out how to feed 10 people and 4 kids. They were all running around trying to call the girl I'd given the order to and trying to figure out what to do. I finally just said "hey, is that fried chicken in there? Got enough to feed 10 people?"
and I walked out with 4 bags full of fried chicken, 2 big buckets of macaroni salad and pesto pasta salad, all for about $15. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet - they all felt so bad and were really nice about it. I'm supposed to get a free tray of sandwiches as well...very cool.

So the next day, I went to the same store to get some groceries for home. I ended up getting lots of BIG stuff...bottles of water, 12 packs of soda, boxes of cat litter...etc, etc.
I was walking towards the car and I saw this creepy guy feeling up some lingerie that was on a sale rack outside of a local adult oriented store....
I guess I was so distracted by the weirdo that I didn't notice I had pushed my cart off the sidewalk...and my entire cart tilted sideways spilling out all my groceries into the (Empty, THANK GAWD) parking space. I made a couple of foolish looking attempts to set the cart upright - but DAMN are those things heavy! The creepy guy came running over and helped me take all my heavy stuff out of the cart and then eventually we got it back upright...I thanked him, and he nodded at me without saying a word, and went right back to the rack and held up a pair of panties. Yeah, it was weirding me out...so I hurriedly starting putting my groceries back into my cart.
In the meantime, some jerk decides that he HAS TO PARK in the exact space that my groceries are strewn all over and actually had the audacity to honk at me...I waved him away and yelled to park somewhere else. When I turned back around and who was standing there smiling? The MANAGER guy from the day before...
He started helping me pick up my groceries and chuckled and said "hmmm, having some problems here I see? Is our store cursed for you or something? At least I can see that you came back after the fiasco from yesterday...but now your groceries are scattered all over the parking lot"
My face was flaming red and I just laughed and said "well, you can't say I'm not LOYAL!" hehe
We filled my cart back up and he wished me a good day...I saw him turn around and notice the creepy guy who was STILL feeling up the skimpy outfits and he kinda did a double-take and then glanced back at me and shrugged...

About a week later, I was back at the store...and I was walking down an aisle. There were two young boys in the aisle roughhousing and shoving each other....I was about to go around them when I noticed Mr. Manager come around the corner. At that exact moment, one of the kids knocked a huge jar of applesauce off the shelf and it cracked and splattered all over the floor and my cart and ME...
The kids took off running and the manager guy just held up his hands and said "SHEESH! I swear, Murphy must follow you into this store or something"
He proceeded to get a towel for me to wipe the applesauce off my shoes and he said that next time he saw me in the store, he would be ready for something odd to happen.

So TODAY, I had to run to the store real quick on my lunch hour. I'm wearing a long purple skirt, with a lavender peasant top. When I was standing in line, the manager guy saw me and nodded in recognition, and then went to help a customer.
I get up to the register and I'm writing out my check...
I hear the bagger girl say "wow, I LOVE your skirt...and the shirt is so great! Where did you get that outfit?"
and I told her that I found it at the strawberry festival...
and she goes "oh, well did you get a business card? I'd LOVE to buy a skirt like that"
and I said "uh, well no..it was a little chinese couple selling them...but I couldn't tell you the name of the business"
and she proceeded to ask me how much it was, and if I knew of any other festivals in the area...
and after I said "I'm sorry, I have no idea", she said
"well, can I see the tag? Maybe they have a website or something"
I was kinda wierded out that she didn't say "hey, cool skirt" and leave it at that...

She started to walk around behind me and I said "well, oooookay" and I scrunched down so she could see the tag....and while she's reading it - I look up and see the cute manager guy walking by shaking his head and he goes "see? what did I tell you? ODD!!!!"

and walked away...

Sometimes Life can be so weird...