Taylor lost her car keys at the grocery store. She saw a friend in the carb aisle (that’s what she liked to call it; it was actually Aisle 7 with the breads and the donuts and the packaged pastry items). Her friend (Dannielle) ran up and jumped into her arms. They hadn’t seen each other in seven months (a pandemic makes it hard to see your friends that are good friends but not your best friends). When Dannielle jumped, Taylor automatically set the keys that were in her hands onto the nearest shelf. Her subconscious knew it would be bad to catch a friend in midair if you have an item in your hands that could be used as a weapon. Taylor’s subconscious never bothered to tell her conscious that the keys were on the shelf, hidden behind a loaf of twelve grain wheat bread.
After checking out, Taylor walked back to her car. Only then did she realize she no longer had her keys. She went back inside and looked around by herself for a while, with no luck. Feeling very defeated and a bit flustered in Aisle 6, Taylor tapped on the shoulder of a grocery associate named Nate. Nate turned around, now flustered himself (Nate had a huge crush on Taylor—he always saw Taylor shop on her usual every-other-Thursday grocery day and dreamed of speaking with her). Nate had no idea where the keys were, but he was determined to find them. Elated, he started asking Taylor which aisles she had been down. Pretty soon, they were walking Aisle 7 together (at least “together” was the word Nate was thinking about) when Nate spotted the keys. He grabbed them from behind the bread and handed them to Taylor, who thanked him profusely and even gave him a big hug. Nick was beaming when Taylor apologized for the hug.
“Sorry, that probably wasn’t appropriate. I’m just so happy I didn’t lose my keys.”
“No worries, I’m just glad I could help you find them.”
Taylor walked off and Nate tried not to watch her the whole way back to the parking lot. Two Thursdays in the future was going to be key. Nate started planning how he was going to ask her out.