A woman at TJ Maxx asked me to watch her cart for "just a second" and then disappeared for 25 minutes
This happened last weekend and I'm still a little bewildered by it. I was at TJ Maxx looking for a bathmat, which sounds like a simple task but you know how it is in there, you go in for one thing and somehow end up in the candle aisle holding a decorative tray you don't need. I had been wandering around for maybe 20 minutes and had made my way over to the home goods section near the back when a woman with a very full cart sort of sidled up next to me.
She was maybe late 50s, had one of those reusable bags from Whole Foods hanging off the cart handle, and the cart itself was genuinely impressive - piled with throw pillows, a lamp, what looked like several picture frames wrapped in that thin tissue paper they use. She smiled at me and said "would you mind watching this for just a second, I need to run grab something real quick." I said sure, because what are you going to say, no? I figured she was grabbing something from the next aisle over. I went back to looking at bathmats. A minute passed. Then another. I started actually paying attention and realized I had been standing next to this strangers cart for probably five minutes. I wasn't even shopping anymore, I was just. standing there. next to a lamp and some throw pillows like I was a display.
At the ten minute mark I genuinely started wondering what my options were. I couldn't just leave the cart, it felt wrong somehow even though I had zero obligation to this woman. I also couldn't push it around the store because then I'd really look like I worked there. I stood there for a few more minutes feeling increasingly like an idiot and then I just kind of slowly edged away from it and went back to looking at rugs. I told myself if anyone asked I'd say I didn't know whose cart it was, which was technically true at that point.
She came back at what my phone tells me was 24 minutes later, arms full, completely unbothered, and said "thank you so much you're a lifesaver!" I said "no problem" like a person with no spine whatsoever and went and bought my bathmat. It's beige. It's fine. I think about that cart sometimes.