The Time I Apologized To a Grocery Cart

Busy, busy, busy, I was hurriedly walking through the parking lot to Target to get whatever it was that I needed, while mentally running through the checklist of all of the other things I needed to get done that day, which was a lot. 

I speedwalk through the parked cars like a champ to the designated crosswalk. I look both ways like a good little pedestrian and start to cross. A driver almost hits me as he screeches to a stop to allow my legal right of way. “Sorry!”, I mouth as I slink by. 

I make it past the automatic doors that never seem to open fast enough and grab a grocery cart. I whip it around and begin the marathon of getting shit done. I zig-zag nimbly through the aisles, plucking products off of the shelves without even stopping. 

I cut a woman off in aisle one. “Sorry!”, she says to me as I blow by. A man cuts me off in aisle two. “Sorry!”, I holler out, without another thought. 

A woman at the opposite end of aisle three knocks a box of crackers off of the shelf and I hear her murmur, “Sorry”, to no one in particular.

I turn down aisle four, looking left and right for the next necessary item, and crash head-on into a lonely, empty grocery cart. 

“OH! Sorry!”, I gasp out loud as I soothingly place my hand on the cold metal of its body.

Um. Yeah. That really happened. It’s OK, you can laugh. That’s exactly what I did next.

“BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”, I whooped out loud! I shook my head, enjoying my moment of dumbassery, and then continued on.

But then.

I stopped. My head tilted and my eyebrows came together as my forehead creased. I thought, ‘What the hell?? Did I just apologize to a grocery cart?? I did. I just apologized to a grocery cart…” 

I thought about that for a few more seconds and then began to work backward, following the trail of apologies during my current trip to its beginning. 

‘One…two…three…four…five…’, I mentally counted. Five apologies had been mouthed in less than fifteen minutes. Three of which belonged to me. Two of which belonged to others. Zero that was actually necessary. All from women.

My shoulders drop and my mind begins to trail off into a pondering of the history of my past apologies.

“Excuse me”, I hear someone say. I snap back and realize that I’m blocking an entire aisle full of aggravated shoppers. “OOPS! Sorry!”, I call out to everyone as I slide my cart out of the way.

Six. At least that one was appropriate.

Why do we do this? Why do women seemingly have a gut instinct to say we’re sorry when we’re not the person that should be apologizing? If you read all of the apologies above closely, you know what I’m talking about. It’s like we’ve been trained to believe that everything we do is an inconvenience to someone else and we should be apologizing for even taking up space.

Or, worse yet, what about when the apology we’re owed is given to someone else?? I can’t tell you how many times someone did something shitty to me but would offer an apology to my then-husband. Think about it. I bet you can remember a situation like this right now if you thought hard enough. I know what you’re thinking: “Stupid men”, but you might be surprised to find out that more times than not, the culprit was a woman. It’s like we’ve also been trained to believe that we don’t even owe our own gender well-deserved apologies.

Ladies. Do me a favor: quit apologizing when you don’t owe an apology. Quit apologizing when you mean to say, “Excuse me”. And please, please, quit giving away necessary apologies to the wrong person. If you’re going to throw one of those out, at least give it to the right person.

I hope this message lands in a good place for you. I hope it makes you think and you stop apologizing when you don’t have to. Honestly, my true hope is that you start asking for apologies when you’re due for one. I know my words may have been harsh in this post. If you know me, my sass level really shouldn’t come as a surprise. But if I’ve offended you…

I’m not sorry.

. . . . .

If you’re ready to start your journey into self-love, you can reach me here.