I was sitting in my car after having made a purchase in one of my favorite stores, The Home Depot, when I noticed a young mother pushing a cart that had three large bags of mulch. She was also carrying a very young baby as she made her way back to her car. I could not see any Home Depot employees around so being the nice guy that I am and seeing a young and good-looking mother that might need a hand, I switched off my car and walked over to her inquiring if she needed help to load out the mulch.

She looked at me and must have decided that I was harmless and looked strong enough to help her as she said, “Wait a minute and I will put the baby in the car.” which she proceeded to do. She came back and unlocked the trunk which was already pretty full of stuff as I grabbed a hold of the first bag. I must mention that she had the biggest bags she could find and they each weighed forty pounds and they were in a regular shopping cart and not one of the flat dolly’s which did not help the situation.

I struggled to get the first bag out as my hands kept slipping on the plastic so I dug my fingers in and gave a heave and caught my arm on the baby seat of the cart putting a small gash in it which immediately started bleeding. I turned around to place the bag in the trunk and not being used to cars with trunks, wasn’t watching very carefully and the next thing I know, I had banged my head against the upraised trunk lid. I managed to hang on to the bag and carefully put it in the trunk and at the same time, I felt my fingers go through the plastic and the bag split. She hadn’t noticed and I wasn’t about to ‘fess up considering how foolish I must have looked so far.

I turned back to the cart and in the meantime, she gracefully lifted the second bag out of the cart with absolutely no effort and carefully placed it into the trunk. Not to be outdone by some slip of a woman who probably only weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, I turned my attention to the last bag in the cart. This one was even worse as I struggled to get a purchase on the plastic and when I finally did get it out of the cart, I dropped the bloody thing on the ground. Luckily, it didn’t break so I said in a brave and loud voice, “That’s better, now I can get a hold of it”, which I proceeded to do so, struggling but trying not to show it and eventually placed it in the trunk.

I could see her breathe a sigh of relief that the worst was over and that I hadn’t keeled over with a heart attack as that was probably next considering of how much of an ass I had made of the job so far. She thanked me and wanted to know if my head was OK and I made some lame joke like, “Thank goodness it was my head and not my hand or arm or I might have felt it”. She didn’t get the joke so I quickly jumped in my car before I could embarrass myself even more. I watched her pull away and she was giving me the most oddest of look as though to say, “I wonder if he is OK” or maybe “What a loser”.

One thing is for sure that when she gets home to her husband, she will have a tale to tell and I bet she thinks twice about taking help from the next old geezer that offers.
So much for being a good Samaritan…and oh yeah, I don’t plan on helping anyone else in the future, doesn’t matter how good-looking they are or how many babies they may be carrying.