What kind of person does something like this? Tell me!

Thanksgiving 2001. Our family was living in Swansea, Illinois.  Maybe you are more familiar with Belleville, home of Jimmy Connors? Sure. You know it. You just didn't think you knew it.  Glad I could help you with that. Now back to the story.

10:00 PM the night before Thanksgiving I realize I forgot to buy the ingredients for an apple pie I make every year on, wait for it, Thanksgiving.  I grabbed my cookbook and keys got in the car and headed out to the grocery store closest to our house, Schnucks. Yes, that is the actual name of the store,look right here if you don't believe me. (My husband still calls it Schmucks, so you aren't alone in that if you are already going that way).

Usually I take time to type out a shopping list into one of those convenient online programs that organizes the ingredients by location so I don't have to wander around the aisles for hours buying crap we don't need find the items and get out of the store fairly quickly. I had already completed my major shop. As I was shopping for one recipe, I figured I'd just take the cookbook with me, grab what I needed and come right home. Everything went as planned. Well,almost.

I got to the parking lot, parked the car and headed into the grocery store. I picked a cart, put my cookbook in the smaller part of the basket and turned it to the page I needed. I found the necessary ingredients, went through the checkout lane, paid for my items, they were put in bags, I pushed my shopping cart out of the store and next to my parked car. I loaded the groceries into the car but given that it was almost 11PM, I just wanted to get home, so I chose to fore go putting the cart in the cart parking thingy and just left it in an empty parking space next to my own car.

I then drove home.

I unloaded the groceries.

My husband helped me.

And then I realized I had left my cookbook in the cart at the store in the parking lot.

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

Within seconds I was on my way back to the grocery store, a mere 2 minute drive. Upon driving through the practically empty parking lot, I saw my abandoned cart sitting alone just where I had left it only moments earlier.  I parked my car, hopped out and checked the cart for my cookbook.

GONE!

Huh? Where was it? Cart is here. Cookbook isn't. Okay, so I figure maybe someone found it in the  cart and brought it back into the grocery store and turned it in. I walk into the grocery store and step up to the customer service counter.

Schnucks Customer Service Person: "Weren't you just here?"

Me: "Yes, but I left my cookbook in my cart, got home and realized I had forgotten it. Do you have it somewhere back there?"

Schnucks Customer Service Person: "I'll go look." Which she does. "Nope. It's not here."  She then calls out to almost every person at a register asking, "Hey, has anyone seen this lady's cookbook? She left it in a cart."

No one comes forward. I'm fairly certain everyone looks at me like I am some kind of freak. Which admittedly, I kind of am. It's the night before Thanksgiving, it's late and I'm chasing down a cookbook I left in the parking lot. Yeah, I think that has freak all over it. However, I really don't think I am as much of a freak as the person who decided to steal my cookbook from the shopping cart! What kind of person does that?

Dejected and upset I begin the drive home.  On my way I call Aviva because I know she has the same cookbook, will be able to email me the recipe and she will console me.

Aviva: "Someone stole your Creme De Colorado Cookbook?"

Me:" Yup. Looks that way."

Aviva: "Didn't your cousin give that to you as a wedding gift?"

Me: "Yeah and I'm sure the person who has my cookbook will feel warm and tingly every time they read the inscription , 'Mazel Tov Devra and Pete! We hope you have many years of making yummy things together! Love, HelenRuth, Erwin, Erika and Tony.' "

Aviva: "Give me a few minutes, and I'll email the recipe to you." 

Me: "Thanks."

Aviva: "Who the hell steals a used cookbook? Who would even want to?"

Me: "Ya got me. I thought the same thing."

Long story short. Aviva sent me the recipe, I made the pie, I ordered a new cookbook from Amazon and we lived in Swansea for 3 more years.

And for the next three years whenever I went that grocery store, which was often, the customer service person at Schnucks would greet me loudly with...

"We still haven't found your cookbook!"

But it didn't end there.  Why? Because this is me you are talking about. When I have weird crap happen to me, it isn't over and done with until something totally bizarre happens. Right before we moved to The DC, one of my friends invited me to a fund-raising dinner. The Huz was deployed and she figured it would be a fun evening for me.  I made some strawberries to share and got a sitter for the evening.

Arriving at the table, I didn't expect to know anyone as my friend had already told me it was mainly folks who were locals who she knows through the club sponsoring the event.  I sit down and introductions take place around the table.  As people say hello, I travel along to the next person's face and wait for them to introduce themselves to me and me to them. As my eyes settle on a woman seated across from me she becomes extremely animated and smiles broadly at me. Oh? She recognizes me, and she looks familiar but I haven't any idea where we've met previously. She does.

"You're the one who had that cookbook stolen from your cart!"

Now I recall where I know her from. She's the customer service person from Schnucks who was working the night my cookbook went MIA.

"We never found your book. Isn't it weird that someone would steal a cookbook? What kind of person does that?"

Who the hell knows.

This is an original post to DC Metro Moms Blog.