Embarrassing moment

[DammitJanet]

I did something absolutely embarrassing today. We were at a Goodwill type place looking for jeans and winter sweatshirts. Well its set up with tables and bins and shopping carts filled with junk just shoved all over the place. You can also grab a shopping cart to use to carry your stuff if you can find one not being used...or a cardboard box. Ok...we were just browsing from table to table...rack to rack. I was kinda spaced out anyway this morning because I havent been feeling all that well. I happened to notice this shopping cart with this purse in it on top of all this junk....just thrown in there. No one was around it. It was shoved over in a corner. I thought it was a bin. I thought the purse looked kinda nice and reached over to see if I would be interested in it. It was a funky color but hey...for cheap I thought I would see what it was like. I reached over to pick it up and look at it. I was holding it and examining it when this woman comes running over yelling at me. Seems that it was hers! I hadnt opened it up or anything at that point...was just looking at it all over but was about to unzip it. She was awful lucky that it was me that grabbed it because a thief would have grabbed it and run. Even if I had opened it I would have looked around and tried to find the owner. But who in their right mind leaves their purse unattended in a place like that? Then gets mad at me????? I didnt do it on purpose and I apologized profusely but she still acted like I was trying to steal from her.

 

[totoro]

See if I was the woman I would have apologized to you... then made some joke about trying to lift my purse and how there is nothing but debt in it!
People are weird and there is such a problem with trust in our society. I wouldn't worry about it, you know you are a good person...

 

[WhymeMom?]

I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt that SHE was just embarrassed that she left it unattended......YOU did nothing wrong, your first apology should have been met with, thank you for retrieving my purse, I don't usually leave it in the open, but I was temporarily distracted by something on sale...... Next time I will bring the one with the longer strap and carry it on me......

So let's pretend it happened just that way and DON'T take on any guilt she was trying to put on you! Frankly this is why I generally try to carry my credit card, keys in a pocket rather than take a purse and have to keep track of it.....

NOT YOUR PROBLEM......

 

[1905]

Some people have such wrong responses to others. Sunday, this woman to whom I had given many rides to, never asking her (nor did she offer) gas money- I asked her for a ride about a mile away from my house. She rides a half hour to get here. She easily could have, instead of saying, "No", she screamed into the phone. Then she spewed forth 10 curse words-WTH? I ended up not even going. We were working at a parking lot- for free- anyway, I never went. Just tell me no, nicely. She thought there would be too much traffic. I was feling bad, why would someone behave that way? She's the one who is an idiot.


Don't feel bad, anyone listening to the exchange would think you were nice.-Alyssa

 

[mrscatinthehat]

not your fault. I don't leave my purse if I carry one unattended like that. Just doesn't make sense.

beth

 

[flutterbee]

I'm not so nice. I would have apologized and explained and would have felt bad and been embarrassed. If she went on I would have told her that she was the idiot that left her purse unattended in a cart full of clothes for sale and that she's just lucky that it was you that came across it, not someone who would have grabbed it and ran.

Gee. I wonder why people think I'm such a b!tch.

 

[nvts]

I would have said very loudly "you actually keep that thing in your purse?". "Does your husband know?"

and then walked away.


Beth

 

[KTMom91]

I'm guessing she reacted like that because she was embarrassed for being so stupid as to leave her purse unattended. Why do women do this? If I could run faster, I could make a career out of grabbing purses out of grocery carts! Mine stays on my shoulder. But then, I'm not terribly trusting of my fellow shoppers...too long in retail, I guess.

 

[house of cards]

Some people just think the worst of humanity. My mom would have done the same thing to you...My mom is almost 77 years old and has started to leave her purse in parking lots, in the cart. Two times recently she was so upset when she lost it. she was sure no body would turn it in. Both times a kind soul did. The second time she said "maybe you are right and there are more good people around then bad." I wouldn't want to be that lady and go through life thinking it is such a dog eat dog world. She is just sad and not worth your time.

 

[Andy]

She was impulsive. She doesn't trust people.

One day at a grocery store, I looked down to find my purse gone from the cart. As I started to panic, I figured it out, I had walked away from the cart for just a second and when I returned, I took another person's cart that was next to mine. I probably looked ridiculous running through the store looking at other people's carts in search of mine. The person who did have my cart didn't even notice my purse in it.

People have to give each other the benefit of the doubt sometimes and accept apologies. Why is it so easy to think everyone has bad reasons for doing things? Sometimes it is not good or bad, it just happens.

 

[Stella Johnson]

That woman was an idiot. I would have tried apologizing but if she kept griping or yelling I would have embarrassed her. Only a moron leaves their purse in a cart and walks away especially in a 2nd hand store.

Steph

 

[Hound dog]

Evidently this wonderful reply I had disappeared somewhere into cyberspace.........

But in a nutshell.........Steph put it beautifully, a woman walking away from her purse in a 2nd hand store is an idiot.

Hugs

 

[donna723]

Ha! I was on the other end of the same kind of thing last Saturday! I always buy several mums to put on my porch every fall and I went to this real 'down-home' type place that always has good ones. They had hundreds of them outside in all different colors. I always pick through them like my life depended on getting exactly the right ones in the right colors. I was looking for the ones that still had a lot of buds on them so they would be in bloom longer. I finally picked out two yellow ones, two bright purple ones, and one huge white one the size of a washtub! You have to go inside to pay so I put the five I had picked out next to my car and went in to pay. When I came out here was this woman picking up one of MY purple mums and checking it out! Of course, she didn't know that it was MINE, but I wanted to roll her all over that parking lot! But I didn't! I just kind of laughing said, "I just paid for those ..." She actually was a very nice lady. And I clued her in that I had already been to Wal Mart and they didn't have diddly squat as far as mums go!

I really believe though that most people are honest. My kids once made the trip from Tennessee to Orlando and back by themselves when they were teenagers. When they were leaving to come home my daughter stopped at that big service plaza outside of Orlando to fill up with gas and made the mistake of setting her wallet on the roof of her car while she put the gas in! She didn't miss it until they were almost out of gas again and stopped to fill up! They made it home on pocket change! All the money she had was in her wallet, plus all her ID - figured it was gone for good! At least a two months later a big brown envelop came, addressed to my daughter! And inside it was her wallet with all her ID still in it, and all the money was still there too - minus the exact amount of the postage it took to send it to her! There was no return address so we have no idea who found it or where they found it ... but they DID go to all the trouble to return it! I was amazed!

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Yeah, she reacted that way out of embarrassment. I have to admit, I've wandered a little farther than I should from my cart (with purse in it) from time to time.

Somewhat on the subject, they recently opened a new Goodwill store nearby. My dad took Copper there with a coupon, she needed clothes (since her X-boyfriend the leprechaun had forced her to get rid of most of her clothes) and she made out like a bandit!

 

[Abbey]

People are just very wary of others these days. I wouldn't take it offensively.

I've had several times people walk out of the store with some grocery item realizing they haven't paid for it. The come in panicking..."really, really, I wasn't trying to steal it. It was under my purse or the bottom of the cart." They're getting to know my sarcastic humor so I mess with them a bit. Hold on while I call 911. We've got a stolen can of V8. I'm punching numbers on the phone...probably dialing Indonesia.

She probably got home and realized she over reacted. I think most people are honest and as you would have, come back to the store with the purse. Don't worry about it.

Abbey