Equipment Malfunction

 The cart would not go. 

Usually? I'm a hand basket or mini-grocery cart person, but our new supermarket has underground parking which means riding the elevator or using the cart escalator to get your purchases to the car. And so I have learned to park near the corral and select a full-sized shopping cart when my list is long.

Which I did today, and my mind was already in the car and driving home when I pushed my fully loaded cart through the swinging doors and onto the tiny channel which was supposed to guide it down. Except it didn't! My cart froze and it was only sheer muscle that brought it back to me, but there was no rolling it anywhere. 

Perplexed, I signaled one of the young employees overseeing the self-checkout. "My art is locked!" I reported with dismay, and nodding politely, he went over to a secret drawer and returned with a device about the size of a lockbox for a rental property. All of a sudden my cart could roll again!

"Can I take it down?" I asked hesitantly, and I should have listened to my gut, but his nod seemed so reassuring.

Once again, my cart locked at the top, but this time as I was struggling to free it, the young man who had bagged my grocery came to the rescue. "Let me help you," he said, and with a mighty heave shoved my cart forward. 

I hadn't noticed the touch screen at the top of the apparatus until it started beeping and flashing the CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE message.

"I'll be right back," the guy said and I watched him go over to the counter about 10 yards away, speak to someone and walk away. When I had almost given up, a women strode purposefully up to me from the other direction.

"I'll help you!" she said waving her key card across the display and confidently tapping a series of numbers. The belt began moving.

"Yay!" I said, but before I could thank her, my cart stalled again and she frowned. Repeating the series, she leaned on the last button to keep everything going, and I hopped on my side of the escalator. Arriving at the bottom along with my cart, I turned to see her wave and start away, presumably to solve another problem. Just then? My cart locked again, frozen at the bottom of the incline.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Excuse me!" 

And thankfully? She heard me and turned. Descending the escalator herself, she commandeered another cart from the guy who was bringing them up in the elevator, transferred my groceries, and yanked the offender out of there. "So sorry for the inconvenience!" she told me, and as I walked away I heard her muttering. "I gotta call my boss."