The Day The Elderly Abused Me

I love senior citizens. I practically am one.
I love their ability to be blunt in every situation.  If your hair looks bad, they tell you.  If you have bad breath, they will tell you.  If you whisper in church, they'll turn around to shush you. If you've gained a few pounds, they'll tell you.  They are like toddlers with more money and more life experience.
And... if you let them, they will steal a shopping cart right out from under you.

Yesterday, I had to run into the Mart.  Sadly, it was pouring rain, so all the carts were soaking wet.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to loosen a cart from the jammed up cart pile for about 5 minutes.  When I finally got one free, I pulled it over to the side and wiped it off with an old Kleenex I found in my pocket.  Then I spied a roll of paper towels near the cart wipes.  (The "cart keepers" of the Mart were looking out for us.)  So I grabbed a few paper towels and kept on drying.
That's when the elderly man started stealing my cart.
He grabbed the front of the cart and was rolling it away with my purse in it.  For a grandpa, he was fast.  I had to jog a tiny bit to catch him.  Laughing as I ran, I finally grabbed the handle and said,
"You're stealing my cart!"

He said, "Oh.... I thought you worked here."

Well. 
I took my dry cart back and started my shopping.

For the record, I do not consider it an insult to be mistaken for an employee of the Mart.  But yesterday, there were some glaring differences.
I was drying off ONE cart... not the whole group.  The Mart employees are great, hard-working people... But none of them has ever dried off a shopping cart for me.
I was dressed up to meet Dan/Daddy for lunch.  By "dressed up," I mean "not stretchy pants and flip flops."  I had on a necklace and real shoes.  The employees at the Mart are nice, well-kept workers... But the sweater I had on was not "Mart blue." 
The Mart employee who stands at the door is friendly and chatty... But I wasn't even smiling.
So somehow, some way PeePaw thought I was a Mart cart wrangler.

My husband, my brother, my friend, and the boy all got the biggest laugh when I told them my story.
Dan/Daddy thought it was funny I had to run to catch the guy.
My brother told me he gets mistaken for a worker in stores all the time.
My friend said she didn't want to read about me abusing the elderly in the news.
The boy argued with me for at least 30 minutes about the color of my sweater.  He swears it was "Mart blue."  It's not.

When I paid for my things and left the Mart, PeePaw was walking out right in front of me. 
I laughed to myself, but I kept my eye on him.