By now you all must know that awful feeling that goes along with breaking something in a store that you haven’t purchased.
We’ve all done it at one time or another; weather it be accidentally toppling over a wobbly table with a humongous (but oh-so-fashionable) handbag, unknowingly backing up into a display of precariously stacked jars, or inadvertently knocking over a decorative photo frame while reaching for a piece of (delicious! free!) candy at the cash register.
It’s mortifying and it’s face reddening, and I happened to experience it while shopping for the very few ingredients required for this baked salmon dish.
I was strolling through the aisles of our adorable and convenient (but not exactly discount) neighborhood grocery market, gathering up a few things that I needed for that evening’s supper. I was somewhat self-absorbed at the moment; in-between scrolling through my iPod app searching for the perfect tunes to be-bop along the aisles to, I was flip-flopping back and forth to my notepad app, mentally checking items off my electronic grocery list as I tossed cucumbers and salad greens into my pint-sized pushcart.
Never to be one of those people who selfishly keep their ear-buds jammed in at all times (do they really think that we like to hear them shout over their MP3 of “Now THAT’s what I Call Music #487″ blaring out of their iPod?!), I of course politely remove them whenever I know I am about to interact with a human being or stand in a line.
At the very moment I picked up a large jar of capers packed in brine, I heard Jack, the fishmonger, yell me a friendly hello. I turned, and my hand got caught in a tangle of my aforementioned gargantuan handbag and headphones, and I accidentally karate-chopped that poor jar straight onto the floor.
One very hard - very tile - very unforgiving floor.
