hell is the pits

this week i was in my car a lot. i sometimes feel like i live in there. i keep plenty of coats, shoes, rain gear, and water. not because i'm afraid i'll get stranded on a mountain but because i never know what i'm going to get into or when i'll be thirsty.

so this week in my car i was driving through the lovely part of west columbia that i will happily be departing from in 1 week. i went by the local bi-lo and there was a lady standing in the parking lot entrance with a cart full of groceries. what she was attempting to do was cross a 4-lane highway with her cart full of food. bi-lo is on the right side of the street so i looked over to the left side because my first thought was, where exactly is she going? if i was her, how would i win this game of frogger? i noticed that directly across the street there is a house manufacturing place. one of those places where they have the model homes all set up in a parking lot and it's weird because it's like a mini subdivision. a play subdivision. so i think to myself that she's definitely not going there. i do notice a little dirt road that goes off into somewhere, who knows. i figure this is where she's going. so now she's going to cross the 4-lane highway with a full grocery cart and then struggle to push it down the dirt road. i'm sure that would be bumpy ride and i wonder about the eggs, if she bought eggs. i hope they didn't crack. so it was a weird site to see this woman and the GOOD thing would have been to pull in and load all her groceries in my car and drive her to wherever, right? i know. that's not what i did. don't make me feel guilty.

i do think it's weird though when i see people with carts from stores wheeling down the road. she wasn't the typical type of person who has a cart to hold all of his/her belongings. she was just grocery shopping. i wonder if she keeps the bi-lo cart at her house and then just takes it with her when she goes shopping. it's something to think about. it's like her version of a car. hmmm.

have you ever noticed how sometimes you'll be in the mall (and it has to be a mall where there's a bed bath and beyond or some big store like that attached) and you'll see someone pushing a cart from another store down the mall, like in the mall part NOT in the store. or if you're at a target shopping center (they always have bed bath and beyond or tj max) and you'll see someone wheel into target with a cart from another store. clearly their cart is blue or gray and everyone else's is red. the cart is the store's property right? if you take it, should you pay for it? i don't know. i always return my cart or go to my car to dump stuff in there before i hit the next store. am i the only one who sees this kind of stuff and thinks it's just not right? and am i also the only one who knows the cart color of so many stores? think about it. what color are the carts in publix, walmart, etc? this is a game that could last forever.

later in the week, after the grocery cart lady incident, i was driving through another unpleasant part of west columbia/lexington (a part i will not be able to avoid because i work there) and i passed a church and you know how church's are often very good at putting thought-provoking saying on their signs out front?? mmhmmmm, you know what i'm talking about. yea, so this church had just one line of letters and it read, Hell is the Pits.

well yea, i'm sure it is, but should that really be what people read as they drive by? shouldn't it read, come in! welcome! god is love! or something of that nature. this is apparently another thing i just don't understand.