The Max Valu Shopping Cart

Yesterday I took a walk that I usually take after lunch on most days. I have been doing this for about 8 months now. I decided to do it after I started feeling lethargic and drained. I was afraid of suffering from メタボリックシンドローム metabolic syndrome.

I get one hour off for lunch so I usually eat my lunch and then go for a 20-30 minute walk around the school and up through a park walkway. In the past on these walks I have enjoyed seeing trees, flowers, birds, fish, reptiles and insects. It gives me a breath of fresh air and I can reduce the stress from the daily humdrum.

Kids at my school all know that I take my daily walk because I am the only teacher who does so and I discuss it with them during some of our warm-up conversations. I know also that some teachers go off school grounds to puff a smoke because doing so on school grounds would be a violation of the rules. So while on my walk I usually see one or two of the smokers out loafing about the streets that intersect the school.

But while walking yesterday I stumbled upon a couple of strange scenes. First I came into contact with huge bullfrog that looked like it had escaped some African zoo exhibit. It was sitting on a concrete ledge just above the water line of a creek/drainage ditch that flows along the path that I walk on. I stopped and admired this monster toad. I must have sat there for several minutes transfixed on Giganto-amphibian, and he didn't blink or move an inch. So I decided to test to see if he was dead or not. I picked up a small twig and tossed it at the toad. About 10 milliseconds before it hit the frog jumped into the water and froggered himself out of harms way.

Well shortly after my enormous frog encounter, I came upon another oddity. Along the path there are bamboo groves and trees that line each side. On my left I noticed about 10 feet off there was a　ショッピングカート　shopping cart thrown upside down in between some trees. I knew this was a fresh addition because I had just walked this same route the day before and it wasn't there then.
So I debated getting the cart and returning it to the store, or just leaving it slumped up in the woods. The reason I debated it was what if neighbors saw me pushing this cart in the middle of a park in the middle of the day. I thought they might think that I was either A) homeless B) mentally deranged or C) a shopping cart thief. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong but how could I prove it if worse came to worse.

I decided to go ahead and do the right thing and brought the cart back with me on my return to school. All the while people walking, riding their bicycles and driving their cars were staring long and hard at this big foreigner, walking down the road in the middle of the day with a Max Valu shopping cart minus the basket and food. Admittedly, had I seen such a sight, I would have thought something strange was going on.

So immediately after returning from the walk with the cart, I notified the 教頭先生 きょうとうせんせい, vice principal about the situation. He then grilled me about it and I explained as best I could about where the cart came from. He then called the office chief in and she called Max Valu.

The next morning the, 教頭先生　きょうとうせんせい, vice principal came to my desk and told me a manager from Max Valu came to pick up the cart in a station wagon and he thanked me.