Of Prune Juice And Ginger Ale

It's been a busy week so far. Not so much on Steemit, but that reality we like to call life.

My wife went in for hernia surgery on Monday. When the surgeon got poking around, she found not only the hernia my wife was having trouble with, but two smaller hernias that would have probably grown if unattended. All three, thankfully, were worked on.

It was also an outpatient surgery, which means my wife is supposed to be healed up in four weeks, as long as she manages to avoid tearing anything, as well as keeping up on her sleep and walking. So far, it's not been the easiest of combinations to comply with, but I think she's been doing well for the most part.

She's already at the boredom stage, however, after just two full days home. That's because she can't do much of anything other than sit and watch TV, read or watch the granddaughter run around. She is supposed to move about, too, which has has been, but it's mainly from the chair on one side of the house to the bathroom on the other side and back.

Now, that's not the reason for this post. It's the background for what's happened this evening.

The pain pills my wife was given have a tendency to cause constipation. While she hasn't been eating as much as she normally does, she has been experiencing some of the constipation. Nothing she's tried to alleviate that has helped, so while my son and her daughter were out and about, they stopped at WinCo to get some prune juice to jump start bowel movements for my wife, along with some ginger ale for my daughter-in-law, who has been feeling poorly, presumably to help with her upset stomach, nausea, flu, whatever it might be.

Having purchased the items, my son and granddaughter got back to the car in the parkinglot, loaded up and made it all the way home before realizing that the prune juice and the ginger ale were still in a bag in the cart where he had left them. Apparently, he was more concerned about not leaving his daughter behind that he wasn't able to also remember the prune juice. Frankly, I can't fault him for that. Push comes to shove, the granddaughter will always be the one to bring home, even when she's a teenager.

Since the prune juice and the ginger ale was bought and paid for, my son went back for them. The granddaughter stayed at home, just in case. Actually, it was time for dinner.

When he got back to WinCo, he saw one of the employees retrieving carts and asked to see if maybe his cart was among them. It wasn't, but the worker referred him to customer service. So, inside my son went. When he asked the person behind the desk if someone happened to find some prune juice and ginger ale, the attendant knew exactly what he was talking about and handed over the items even though my son didn't even have the receipt, because it was also in the bag.

Now, I don't know who returned the items to customer service—it may well have been one of the employees gathering carts—but someone did. Then, the person at customer service was still able to/nice enough to just hand over the items. I'm guessing that most people don't come in looking for prune juice and ginger ale that aren't theirs, but hey, crazier things, right? Also, I imagine that around seven dollars worth of stuff is chump change in comparison to what might get shoplifted on a daily basis.

Regardless, I'm sitting here writing this feeling grateful that my son didn't waste his hard earned money on items he could no longer locate because someone was still good enough to turn the items in. I'm also grateful for a chance to see if the prune juice will help my wife. I'm thankful that there is still good people in this world. Which sometimes means overcoming a general apathy. I'm glad because I like to think it's what I would have done, had I wandered across the bag myself. I like to think what we do returns to us in some way. It seems to work when I let people into traffic, anyway.

And now with prune juice and ginger ale.

_{Photo image by Glen Anthony Albrethsen}