The Grocery Olympics

In the absence of Mystical Roo and subsequently the Ute, I'll often go wandering over to the supermarket to pick up some shopping.  It's not far to walk, only about fifteen minutes, and I'm lucky enough to enjoy a rather scenic walk by the ocean.  Somehow, over the last three days, I've racked up a shop per day!  No big deal, but honestly - how do I keep forgetting things?  I even make a list.  I'll be unpacking the shopping, or halfway back to the flat when something clicks and damn it I realise I've forgotten the clingfilm.  Or the milk.  Or more importantly the toilet roll.  We can all manage without clingfilm and milk but do we really want to sacrifice the toilet roll?  I think not.  I have discovered that my little trips to Woolies have become a serious fat burning exercise.  Never mind the walk to Woolies, that's easy, it's the walk back when I'm loaded with shopping bags.  Along with forgetting various grocery items I also seem to forget that I have to walk back to the flat with my goods.  I'm meant to be going for essentials only, you know, toilet paper and things that are easy and lightweight for me to carry back.  Did I really need that 1kg bag of apples?  Probably not.  But then I don't think about things like this until I'm lugging the shopping back through town.  I try to balance myself with the shopping bags so to avoid any unfortunate swaying and crashing.  I also try to walk quite swiftly so I can get home faster and dump my heavy load.  The interesting thing is, you can be quite obviously struggling with weighty bags but no one ever accommodates you by moving out of the way.  Whilst walking along the pavement with many bags, including those damn apples, I was ambushed from nearly all angles.  Some ladies to my left were walking alongside one another whilst at the same time a group of workmen came out of the pub to the right.  Then all of us were heading towards a bottle neck created by strategically placed cafe tables.  So, did the ladies go single file?  Did the workmen go single file?  Hell no!  I can't go single file because there's only one of me.  This resulted in some impressive bag lifting on my part.  With no movement on either side of me the only thing I could do was haul those shopping bags above my head like some weight-lifter specialising in the grocery Olympics.  My God that took some effort.  There was much muttering from me on the discourtesy of my fellow pedestrians.  This was only half way home and I could see one of the bags splitting so I picked up my pace.  It was a hot day (for winter) and I was becoming sweaty and unladylike.  My hair was starting to fall out of it's clip and fly into my face.  Then my jacket decided it wanted to slip off of my shoulders and rest half way down my back flashing black bra straps underneath a white vest top.  The shame.  By the time I reached the painters working on my road I had hair all over the place, clothes all over the place and was looking pleasantly shiny.  Nice!  They all watched me with smirks of amusement before I hurried around the corner and back into the flat.  I've never been so pleased to get home and made sure to curse the bag of apples as I placed them in the fruit bowl.  I think maybe I need to invest in a little trailer or something.  Maybe a donkey.