A Woman's Gotta Do What a Woman's Gotta Do..

As I was getting dressed yesterday morning, I was thinking about how mundane my life seemed to be lately. The only thing on my calendar that day was to go to the lab and have some blood drawn for a follow up CBC.

Woo! I thought. That's pathetic.

My friend Naomi offered to go with me and after we left the clinic, we decided to do a little shopping. Just to liven up the day a bit. We stopped at a grocery store, I grabbed a cart from inside the store entrance and plopped my purse into it.

That's when things became distinctly less mundane.

As Naomi and I were examining bags full of those little mandarin oranges that are so popular these days, I had my cart directly in front of me. Just as I turned away from the fruit and back toward the cart, I saw a young woman running out of the store. With my purse tucked under her arm.

I had just begun to perspire with the effort of walking to the store from the parking lot, but my fatigue completely evaporated as I began to yell, "HEY! THAT'S MY PURSE!!" and I sprinted after her. I caught up to her as she was just opening her car door and yanked my purse from her arms. "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?!!"

I'm pretty vocal when I'm hacked off.

She was young and fit appearing, but I grabbed her firmly by her upper arm. "SOMEBODY CALL THE POLICE!!" By then I was shouting at the top of my lungs.

By now a small crowd had gathered. A dopey bespectacled older man said firmly, "Ladies. Surely we can come to some kind of compromise here!" and I looked at him with disbelief. As I did, the little snot squirmed out of my grasp, slammed her car door and squealed out of the parking lot.

Good grief. I HAD her!, I thought in frustration. If that stupid guy hadn't taken my attention away from her, I could have held on! I swung around to give Mr. Dodo Head a piece of my mind, but he had disappeared as well.

In the meantime, the police had been called and several people had noted the car's license plate number. And suddenly.....all my energy was gone. I began shaking and the reality of what had just happened struck me: I had outrun a thieving young gal. And had just about wrestled her into submission. Me. Old, disabled, chubby, ME.

Someone ran and got a folding chair and slid it under me. I'm glad they did because right about then my knees began to buckle. The police officer that appeared held out his hand. "Ma'am. I heard what you did. I want to shake your hand!"

What? What did I do?

"Well, according to the rules as a police officer I should be telling you that you shouldn't try to chase after people like that. But to be honest, I'm glad that you did."

He then went on to do all the usual stuff that police officers do after an incident like this, with a smile on his face every time he looked at me. "She got it back. She got her purse back!" I heard him chuckle to the store employees.

Darned right I did. I thought. Everyone around me was asking me if I was all right, or if I had been injured in any way so I showed them my chipped fingernail. And just after a perfectly good manicure, too! Tsk.

It never occurred to me that I would be in danger which I guess was kind of naive but in all actuality, I think that the bigger potential injuries would have occurred if I would have thought to sit on that little brat before the police came. SHE would have been the one suffering any damages, I thought. She probably had some bruises on her upper arm as it was because I was hanging on to her for dear life before my attention was directed elsewhere. Dumb stupid "compromise" guy. What could he have been thinking?! That perhaps I should have handed over one of my credit cards and half of my cash??

After the hubbub was over and Naomi had deposited me back in my home, I collapsed onto the couch, totally spent.

So this morning.......I'm thinking that maybe mundane is a good thing. A very, very good thing. I will never plop my purse into a shopping cart ever again.