Humbled. In Aisle 16.

I heard my phone ringing and dug through the groceries sitting on my purse to get to it.

Brian was calling.
"Hola!" (I don't know why I always answer my phone in Spanish. But I do...)
Once he discovered I was still at the grocery store, Brian wanted to know if it was too late for me to get him some shaving cream. Technically, it wasn't. I mean, I was still at the store. But I was nearly finished. And shaving cream was completely on the other side of the store!
Even so, what could I say? It's too far for me to walk?
So I got a few more items from my current aisle and then trucked across the store to the HBA department.

Just as I was about to reach for the shaving cream, I heard my phone again. Only now it was more buried by the recent items I'd grabbed and by the time I picked it up, I'd missed the call.
This time it was Joshua, and I pressed a button to call him back.
"Uh, Mom, are you still at Meijer?"
I wanted to say NO. "Yes."
"Hey, could you get me like four cans of corn?" (He uses corn for bait when he fishes for carp. They like the smell. Did you know corn is the most fragrant vegetable? I learn so many interesting facts from my young fisherman!)
"What about the three cans I bought you the other day that are sitting in the garage?"
"I just want to have a bigger supply. Please, Mom?"
"OK." *Hmph!*
It was just about at this moment when I began to think cell phones are not such a great invention.

I picked up the shaving cream and turned around to go back to the other side of the store - to the BACK of the store where the canned vegetables are located. As I trudged along I began to compose a text in my head which I thought I'd send out to my entire family.
It went something like this:

Unless the thing you need from the store is in an aisle I have not yet come to, it IS too late for you to ask for anything else. You know right where the paper is upon which to write the things you need from the store each week. This call-me-in-the-middle-of-shopping-and-send-me-all-over-the-store gig has got to stop. Love, Mom xxooxxoo

Just as I was pressing 'send' in my imagination I picked up the cans of corn and proceeded to the end of aisle 16. Where I saw the baked beans. And realized I had forgotten to get them the first time I was at this end of the store. Even though I had them on my shopping list.
So I grabbed a can and put it in my cart.
Then it occurred to me, if Joshua hadn't sent me for the corn? I would have left the store without baked beans, and would have been really frustrated one evening when I went to the cupboard and didn't find them there.
I smiled at God for the little goose chase on which He'd just led me.
I stood there thankful.
And humbled. In aisle 16.