“Ba-bump,” says my shopping cart.

I try to avoid the delinquent banana but don’t succeed.

“Skdrddtt,”says my shopping cart.

It skids on a chewed chicken leg.

I know the only Holdeman Mennonite in Walmart shouldn’t look angrier than the average shopper so I fight with my face.

“Don’t betray me.”

“But—“

“I said ‘Don’t betray me.’”

“But it’s—“

“I know it’s preposterous. But I’m a Mennonite in a head covering. You can’t give them google’s search results for ‘scowl’.”

“Ok. But at least let me press my lips together and flex my jaw muscles .”

I let it go at that, though I skirt the skid scene assiduously. No sense in tempting my features to expose me.

The incidents fade. My features maintain the polite half-smile. They have no idea of the ambush ahead.

Last on my list: fill water jugs. I park my cart by the filling station.

No.

A gnawed pear core lies where my water jug belongs.

The polite half smile recoils paroxysmally and twists into a sneer.

I don’t reprimand my face.

“Nasty,” I pinch off.

“Nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty,” I fume all the way to the check-out.

“Don’t shoot daggers,” I warn my indignant features. I almost pat them, “Next time it will be all better.”

Right?

Wrong.

The next time, the pear core is still there. Flies circle the mangled rotting flesh. My face twists convulsively while my eyebrows collide and my eyeballs almost fall out of their chairs.

“Grace.”

Two thousand, three hundred and seventy miles away from West Texas, my British Columbian friend picks up her phone and listens to my message: “Grace, it’s still there.”

“Okay, wayer did ya say ya were from?” Asks the man.

“I’m calling from northern Canada.”

“She says she’s ferm northern Canada.”

“Canada?”

“Yeah.”

“What does she want?”

“Uh, mayamm?”

“Yes?”

“What were ya calling about?”

She clipped her Canadian accent a bit closer. “My friend says you have a rotting pear core in your water filling station.”

“I can’t unnerstand what she’s saying.”

“Mayamm? Kin you say that again?”

“My friend says you have a rotting pear core in your water filling station.”

“We have a..”

“Yes. She says it’s been there for several days.”

“Where are ya from again?”

“Northern Canada.”

“And ya say that we have a—“

“Yes.”

[A string of horrified polite apologies]

We’ll take care of it right away.”

“Kayyyyla,” Grace comes to me. “Kayyyla, they were so nice to me. They were so appalled and could hardly understand me and couldn’t apologize enough and then— ‘Where are ya from again?’”

We laugh until we cry.

Next Friday, I return to Walmart.

“It’s gone.” I reassure my features. “You’ll be okay today.”

“Ka-bung, ka-bung, ka-bung,” says my shopping cart.

My face emits a low growl.

“It’s okay,” I soothe. “This cart just needs hip replacement.”

Kayla Buerge

November 2021