The Shopping Cart Dilemma

I approached a woman and offered her a loonie in exchange for her shopping cart.  She took my money, I took her cart.  A few seconds later I noticed the cart didn’t have a loonie in it, so I trailed her.

As she climbed into her truck I said, “This cart doesn’t have a loonie in it.”  I thought she’d say, “I’m sorry, I forgot” and return my money.  Instead, she shrugged, shut the door, and smirked at me through her window.  I stood there for a moment, stunned.  She stole my loonie!  My precious, saved-especially-for-shopping-carts loonie!

I think about this experience often because it makes me leery during other money/cart trades.  I also feel bad that someone compromised her integrity over a loonie.  I mean, if you need a loonie that bad, just ask.  I’ll give you one.

Or will I?

A few weeks ago, someone approached me asking for a cart trade and, to my dismay, I found myself with a handful of dimes.  Now, I know that ten dimes equal a loonie – but that was my precious, saved-especially-for-shopping-carts loonie!

So I had to go to the bank to get another loonie to keep in my cup-holder.

My next grocery trip someone else approached me all bubbly and smiles, holding out four quarters.  I groaned and said, “But then I’ll have to find another loonie.”  Her face fell; I felt like a jerk and handed over my cart.

I wish I didn’t mind doling out loonies.  I wish I didn’t have to fight to acquire and keep my own precious, saved-especially-for-shopping-carts loonie.  I wish other people would get their own loonies.  I wish I could go to the grocery store without facing the shopping cart dilemma:  be sweet or be savvy?

Back to School

Kids are already back in school.  Did this summer go by fast, or what?  I’m not ready to tackle that tedious-yet-highly-creative job of packing nutritious, exciting, and delicious lunches again.

I am glad the back to school shopping is over.  Juggling supply lists, clothing lists, grocery lists, and footwear lists (come on shoe manufacturers – don’t you know we need white soles for indoor shoes?) is quite exhausting.  Add in combination locks, boxes of tissue, haircuts, registering, sharpening pencils, and labeling lunchboxes, and I’m about ready for another vacation.

This year we did some back to school shopping at West Edmonton Mall (after we shopped locally, of course).  If you do your back to school shopping there next year, may I remind you of a few things:  wear your most comfortable shoes, park close to the stores you need, and remember to take the roll of loonies out of your purse first.

With all this talk of “back to school” (including my husband who went back to school last year to work on his CMA designation) I’ve started thinking about it myself.

I didn’t go to university after high school.  I went the technical college route – one intense year of 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. classes.  It wasn’t until years later, when we paid off my husband’s student loan, that I realized how nice it was I didn’t have one.  University is an awfully expensive place to “find” yourself.

But I’ve finally thought of something I might enjoy studying at university:  Human Resource Management.  The question is:  Do I have time to go to school while managing the needs of a family of seven?  If only “Human Resource Management” meant food prep, laundry, and back to school shopping, I’d already have my doctorate.

On Religious Education

During a survey a few years ago, I recommended a comparative religion component be included in the Grade 5 Bible class.  I believed it would be beneficial for children to understand the differences (and similarities) between Christian denominations and other world religions.

At that time I also suggested delegates from the various faiths do the teaching to ensure they were represented fairly.  Perhaps this would have been too difficult to correlate, but I didn’t expect the whole program to be cancelled.  Don’t you hate it when you try to do something good and it backfires?

I believe that education increases understanding.  In a time when the words “tolerance” and “respect” are waved as banners above us, wouldn’t it be easier to tolerate and respect others’ religious beliefs if we actually tried to understand them through education?

Notice I say “tolerate”, “understand”, and “respect” – not necessarily “accept”.  We don’t have to accept or adopt something into our own lives in order to understand it or respect those who believe it.

If the Bible (or religion in general) isn’t taught in school, will it be taught at home?  I think there may be some parents who want to teach their children but don’t know what to say because they haven’t received any religious training themselves.  It can be confusing with so many differing views out there.

Lately, the loudest view seems to be non-believers screaming “No God – No Religion!” in an attempt to save the rest of us from our folly.

Rest assured there are still plenty of believers.  I love it when people tell me of their faith or how a prayer was answered.  Keep it up folks!  We can continue to believe and study the Bible even without a class at school to help us along.