There are certain moments in life when you realize you’ve made a mistake. For Julia, that moment came when she was standing in the frozen-food aisle holding a family-sized lasagna while an employee announced over the store’s speaker system, “Would the owner of a blue Honda Civic please return to your vehicle? Your car appears to be… moving.”
Julia stared at the ceiling. “No.” The announcement continued. “It is currently rolling across the parking lot.” Julia dropped the lasagna into her cart. “Oh, for the love of—” She abandoned her groceries and sprinted toward the front doors.
Julia did not sprint gracefully. She ran like someone escaping a swarm of bees while simultaneously trying to keep her bra in its assigned location. “MOVE!” she yelled as a teenager holding a basket of energy drinks jumped out of her way.
Julia burst through the automatic doors and immediately spotted her blue Honda. It was, indeed, moving. Very slowly, but definitely moving. Apparently, Julia had forgotten to put the parking brake on, and the parking lot had just enough of a slope for her car to begin casually wandering away without her.
“Oh my God.” The Honda rolled past a shopping-cart corral as Julia ran after it. A man loading groceries into his truck noticed what was happening. “IS THAT YOUR CAR?”
“UNFORTUNATELY!”
“DO YOU NEED HELP?”
“I NEED A DIFFERENT PERSONALITY!”
The car continued rolling as people began to watch. Nothing attracts strangers faster than someone publicly losing control of their automobile at four kilometres per hour. An elderly man stopped pushing his cart. A woman holding a toddler pointed. Two teenagers pulled out their phones.
Julia saw them. “DO NOT PUT THIS ON TIKTOK!” One teenager lowered his phone. The other absolutely did not.
Julia finally reached the driver’s door and pulled the handle. Locked. She slapped the window. “You have got to be kidding me.” Her keys were in her purse. Her purse was inside the car. The Honda continued its peaceful journey.
At this point, the man from the truck had joined the chase. “Can you unlock it remotely?”
“With what? Telepathy?”
“Do you have another key?”
“At home!”
The man nodded. “That’s not helpful.”
“I KNOW, KEVIN.”
“My name’s Dave.”
“I DON’T CARE, DAVE.”
The car was now heading toward a row of parked vehicles. Julia began pushing against the side of it. This accomplished absolutely nothing. “STOP!” The Honda ignored her. “STOP, YOU STUPID CAR!” Still nothing.
Dave grabbed the rear bumper. For reasons nobody could explain, another man joined him. Then the elderly gentleman abandoned his shopping cart and joined too. Suddenly three grown men and Julia were attempting to stop a slowly rolling Honda Civic using determination and questionable physics.
A grocery-store employee came running outside wearing a reflective vest. “What happened?”
“THE CAR’S ESCAPING!” Julia yelled.
The employee stared at the Honda. Cars were apparently not covered in his training. “Should I call someone?”
“WHO? THE CAR POLICE?”
Then something miraculous happened. A shopping cart rolled into the Honda’s path. The car gently bumped it. The cart moved backward until it hit another cart, and for approximately three glorious seconds, the rogue Honda stopped.
“NOW!” Dave shouted. Nobody knew what “now” meant, but everyone reacted. Julia grabbed the driver’s-side door handle again. Still locked. Dave tried the passenger door. Locked. The grocery-store employee tried the back door. Locked. The elderly gentleman tried the trunk.
It opened.
Everyone froze.
Julia stared at him. He stared back. “Why is the trunk unlocked?”
“I DON’T KNOW, HAROLD.”
“My name is George.”
“I’M HAVING A DIFFICULT DAY, GEORGE.”
Dave looked into the trunk. “We can climb through.”
Julia stared at him. “Through the trunk?”
“Yes.”
“I am fifty-seven years old.”
The Honda began moving again.
“GET IN THE TRUNK, JULIA.”
Julia got in the trunk. There are moments when dignity becomes a luxury, and this was one of them. She crawled over two reusable shopping bags, an umbrella, a bag of potting soil she’d forgotten about, and something sticky she chose not to investigate.
Dave held the trunk open. “You’ve got this!”
“I DO NOT GOT THIS.”
Julia pushed down the back seat and began crawling into the passenger compartment. Her shoe came off. “MY SHOE!”
“Forget the shoe!”
“I LIKE THAT SHOE!”
The car rolled onward as Julia wriggled halfway through the back seat. Her sweater caught on something. She pulled. Nothing. She pulled harder. There was a ripping sound. “Fantastic.”
“Are you okay?” Dave yelled.
“PHYSICALLY OR EMOTIONALLY?”
“Physically!”
“UNDECIDED!”
She finally fell into the back seat, but now she needed to reach the brake. Julia climbed between the front seats until her backside was pressed against the windshield. Outside, approximately fifteen people were watching.
Someone applauded.
“THIS IS NOT CIRQUE DU SOLEIL!”
She reached downward. Her fingertips touched the brake pedal, but not enough. Julia stretched farther. Her glasses slid off her face. “Of course.” She stretched again and finally managed to press the brake with her hand.
The Honda stopped.
The parking lot erupted in cheers. Actual cheers.
Julia remained upside down between the seats for several seconds before shouting, “WHOEVER IS CLAPPING IS DEAD TO ME.”
Dave opened the trunk. “You stopped it!”
Julia slowly crawled backward. Her hair looked like she’d been electrocuted, her sweater was torn under one arm, she was missing one shoe, and her glasses were somewhere beneath the driver’s seat. She finally emerged from the trunk looking like she’d just survived an extremely low-speed natural disaster.
The grocery-store employee smiled. “That was impressive.”
Julia glared at him. “I came here for milk.”
George retrieved her shoe. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, George.”
“My name actually is George.”
“I remembered one thing today.”
Dave handed Julia her purse through the open trunk. “You should probably put the parking brake on.”
Julia stared at him. “Dave.”
“Yes?”
“Read the room.”
He nodded. “Fair.”
Julia unlocked the car, climbed into the driver’s seat, and secured absolutely everything that could possibly prevent the Honda from attempting another escape. Then she noticed the crowd. Everyone quickly pretended they hadn’t been watching.
Julia straightened her torn sweater. “SHOW’S OVER.”
She returned to the grocery store. The automatic doors opened, and every employee near the entrance suddenly became extremely interested in their jobs. Julia retrieved her abandoned cart. The family-sized lasagna was still there, so she continued shopping as though she hadn’t just crawled through the trunk of a moving vehicle in front of half the neighbourhood.
Bread. Eggs. Coffee. Milk.
When she reached the checkout, the cashier smiled. “Find everything okay?”
Julia stared at her. “Eventually.”
The cashier began scanning her groceries, then picked up a small package Julia didn’t remember putting into the cart. It was a Hot Wheels car.
Julia frowned. “I didn’t put that there.”
Somewhere behind her, someone snorted. Julia turned around. Dave was standing in the next checkout line, smiling.
Julia held up the toy car. “Did you do this?”
Dave looked innocent. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
Julia looked at the cashier. “Scan it.”
Dave started laughing. Julia pointed the Hot Wheels car at him. “This one has a parking brake.”
By the time she finally returned home, Julia had learned three important lessons: always engage the parking brake, never leave your purse inside a locked vehicle, and no matter how embarrassing your day becomes, there’s a very good chance that someday it will become a hilarious story.
Unfortunately for Julia, “someday” arrived approximately forty minutes later when her daughter texted her.
Mom, why are you trending locally on TikTok?
Julia stared at the message for several seconds.
Then she poured herself a glass of wine.
Some problems simply require accepting that the universe has won. 😂
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