Everyone naturally assumes going to the shops to buy groceries is going to be easy. You park in the car park, lock your car, do your shopping, walk back to the car with both hands holding your shopping bags, unlock it, put the bags in the car and drive home. Easy, right? Wrong!

This is exactly what I was doing until I got back to the car, and my world collapsed. Why God?!! Both my hands were holding shopping bags, and I didn’t know which pocket my car keys were in!

At first, I was confident my keys were in the right pocket of my jeans. But, when I shifted the two bags I was holding in my right hand to my left and reached into my right-hand pocket, it turned into the worst moment of my life! I felt nothing. “Godammit, God, you bloody… shit!” I mumbled. “Where are my keys?”

The weight of the groceries in my left hand was intense and getting worse, but I had to use this moment to check my back right pocket. As the plastic bag handles etched a red mark on my left hand, I pushed my right hand inside the pocket.

Not there either. “What the hell?”

I didn’t want to move the bags from my left hand, so I stretched as much as possible to check my back left pocket. My back was wracked with pain as I twisted around, still struggling to hold the bags. 

And I was not going to put them down!

Putting your shopping down in the car park is a sign of weakness, plus those stupid plastic bags always spread open, and some of your shopping rolls out. Putting them down was not an option.

My right hand finally felt the inside of my left back pocket, but this, too, was empty! I screamed a silent scream inside my head and quietly said fuck.

There was one pocket to go. My front left. Why the hell would I have put my keys there?

I realised what I had to do. Something I’d dreaded for seconds now. I had to move all the bags from my left hand to my right. God. No!

But wait!

“Maybe I can get the keys from my left pocket using my right hand,” I thought. “It sounds crazy, but it just might work.”

I decided to give it a go.

Holding the four heavy bags of groceries in front of me with my shaky left hand, I reached my right hand across my body to my left pocket. 

Success! They were there! But my jeans were too tight, and the angle was off. I couldn’t reach them, goddammit! Why God?! Whyyyyy!!!

Defeated, I finally moved all the bags to my right hand, got my keys out with my left hand and opened the car.

The nightmare was finally over, and it was an experience I would not want to have again. This was already the 48th time I’d done it.