Personal Experiences with the Elderly #1

I don't know if anyone actually knew this, but PECULIAR TREASURES has been working on writing a BOOK for about a year now. It's fittingly named "It's a Jungle Out There, Folks!"© And it's about a little over 1/4 of the way finished...:D Anyways, we'll let everyone know when it's published...haha. But the point is, we thought we'd share a little excerpt with you. This little story involves Mart Carts and Elderly People. We're writing it in parts; this one was written by Cara. For the full story of our mall adventures? Another time...or when the book is finished. ;)

Excerpt from the Book "It's a Jungle Out There, Folks!" by Peculiar Treasures:

Then all of a sudden, a old man zooms by on one of our FAVORITE things in the world! AN ELECTRIC CART! And I look at Kelsi and I’m like “Heyyy! WE CAN PROBABLY RENT THOSE HERE! I wonder if they cost money!” So we head over to the customer service to ask. I’m limping and Kelsi’s acting like she needs it for me. TURNS OUT, THEY WERE FREE! All we had to do was leave Kelsi’s I.D. there and we had it! Hallelujah, it was our lucky day! So the ladies assist poor, limping me into the electric cart.

I press the button to go, and it moves very slowly. I was really disappointed it didn’t go faster. Kelsi is babbling about how we have to take turns, and I’m like “UmmHumm…” and THEN the brilliantness hit her. “Hey! We don’t have to take turns! We can just have someone else go get another one for us and bring it back!” So we asked very politely, and a nice person complied, and went down to get it for us. And they came back in this like super turtle slow push-and-pull WHEELCHAIR! NOT ONLY was it a wheelchair that you had to push with your hands, but it was apparently made for people 500+ pounds because it was the HUGEST wheelchair ever! But they had run out of electric carts, so he had just brought us that.

So we realized that it was actually pretty funny! So, Kelsi is like struggling along, grunting her way around in this HUGE wheelchair, informing me that her turn on the electric one needs to be very soon, when I saw this dial on the top of the cart that had a turtle on one side and a rabbit on the other. It was all the way to the turtle! I was like “Hey, wonder what this does?” And I flicked it all the way to the rabbit! WELL GUESS WHAT? It was the speed button! WORD OF CAUTION: NEVER ever turn an uncontrollable cart on that can move forward at the speed of lightning when there are PEOPLE in front of you! I just flicked the handle once and I WAS OFF, FAST AS A BULLET! If I’d had a hat on I would’ve been holding it. In the meantime, Kelsi’s back in her huge ole’ wheelchair, yelling at me to come back, thinking I’m off to have a great time while I’m actually freaking out, thinking I’m like going to run into someone and get kicked out or something. I zoomed around like CRAZY trying not to hit people, cutting people off.

Finally I figured out I should probably just stop driving it for a while. So I look up and Kelsi’s on the second floor sitting there in her ginormous wheelchair, so I decide to take the elevator. I backed in carefully, considering it was just me and an old couple. One quick lesson: IF YOU EVER RIDE THESE CARTS, do NOT forget they are on at FULL SPEED while exiting a elevator. I was in like in the elevator with these 2 old people, and I remembered halfway up “Oh, I need to back up so when the time comes, I can get out of here,” cause’ I was kind of jammed in there at the moment. WELL I SURE DID! At full speed, and I just like SLAMMED into the back of the elevator. The old people like jumped out of the way, probably frightened that this maniac was going to bust right through the elevator!

So I sat still for a while, trying to muffle my laughter (Um, and it wasn’t working) until we reached the top and the doors opened. Well I zoomed FORWARD this time and ran into the opposite wall and almost hit the woman who like jumped into her husband and was like “Oh mercy!” IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO GET OUT WHILE THEY STOOD THERE WAITING! The old people are behind me waiting and ALL these people in front of me waiting to get into the elevator! And I’m just ZOOMING forward and back, forward and back, AT FULL SPEED and jerking around everywhere! Back-up-and-hit-the-wall, zoom-forward-and-hit-the-wall, back-up-and-hit-the-wall-again, was the pattern for like the next five minutes! It was terrible too! I felt sorry for them, because I couldn’t have just let them out, because I had just zipped right in there after them and the big ole’ cart was blocking their way. And of course, they felt sorry for me cause’ I had to ride in one!

So FINALLY, I get out of there and rocket off over to where Kelsi is! And she shows me how her hands are black and her arms are red and she can’t handle the big thing anymore, so we exchanged quickly. SO NOW, I was in this GIANT wheelchair! I’m sorry, but you do NOT know how hard it is to push one of those things! I decided to go into the store nearest me, which was the Fossil Store!

Immediately, BAM! The first thing I do is run into their front display and knock all the T-Shirts off the table! And quickly, this quite-good-looking young man rushed to move it out of my way! After hitting about the seventh display and apologizing profusely once again as the good-looking guy rushed to move it, and told me it was “No problem…” (HA, right!) I decided this game wasn’t so bad! I just had to have extreme control over my urges to die laughing. FINALLY, I made it out of that nutty store with the GOOD-looking employee, and went into Claire’s. Well, after I backed into everything and made all the rude girls that worked there mad at me, I was just like “OH. SORRY.” And backed up and left and went on my merry way. Then I went into the Candy Store, very thirsty, and the guy told me HE COULDN’T GIVE ME WATER FOR FREE! I was like “Well how dumb.” And wheeled around and left, (accidently knocking into his candy display on the way out…oops).

I wheeled around the food court until finally a nice Chinese man at Panda Express told me I could have a cup of water for 25 cents. So I accepted. “Umm, can I have about five of those?” NEVER did I think about how I was going to carry five open cups of water. I was just DYING of thirst from pushing that monstrosity around. So I had spilt about the equivalent of one full cup on myself, when these nice ladies, who I didn’t even know, realized I was in distress and helped me carry them to Kelsi. They looked at us suspiciously when they saw we were both in wheelchairs though. (Wonder Why…?)

 So we traded again, MUCH to my relief. I whizzed off on the electric cart, and found Alyssa (my sister), in the Body Shop. She wasn’t very happy to see me though. (Maybe it’s cause I ran over their display sign trying to get to her.) She was like: “GET. OUT.” So I acquiesced to her wishes and departed.

This excerpt takes place right after Cara and the toothless woman at Dippin' Dots discover her career as an EXPRESS model, and right before Kelsi and Cara lose each other in the mall...with hilarious results.

Hope you Enjoyed...:)