Stephen made his way back to the front, sneaking past customer service and out into the parking lot. Sure enough, just about all the cart returns were full, necessitating a lot of work bringing them all back. He worked from the closest return to the store, and then worked his way out, hitting the farthest one last. It wasn"t until he reached the last cart return that he was approached by an older lady."Young man, I noticed there were several carts down the hill right there, into the creek," she stated, using her finger to point towards the nearby gully.
"Oh, thank you, ma"am," replied Stephen, giving an internal groan. Every once in a while, kids would toss carts down the gully, thinking it was great fun to make the workers have to retrieve them. It was always a pain in the a.s.s, because the gully had steep sides, and half the time you would end up falling into the creek. At best, you"d just end up extremely muddy.
Stephen approached the edge of the gully, and sure enough, there were about three different carts stuck in the mud. One of the carts even had what looked to be an old duffel bag stashed inside. Probably used by the homeless, thought Stephen.
Using one of the trees at the top of the gully to stabilize him, he leaned in to grab the first cart, and with his strength, was able to pull it up over the top of the gully and back onto the pavement of the lot. There"s one out of three.
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The next one was stuck upright into the creek, with only the top portion visible above the waters. He wouldn"t be able to reach it entirely from the top of the bank, so he chose careful footing to get down into the mud. With a careful grasp, he was able to pull it out of the creek, and drag it off the bank and back on the pavement. There"s two out of three, he thought.
The very last one, the one with the duffel bag, was the furthest away from the top. Picking his careful footing again, he dropped down into the gully to grab it. This time though, his footing gave way under the loose mud, causing him to lose his balance.
"s.h.i.+t!" He yelled as he went down, with his b.u.t.t landing firmly in the mud. Shaking his head in anger, he tried to pull himself back up carefully. Once he was finally stabilized, he looked behind him to find his entire rear end mud covered. d.a.m.nit, I hate this gully.
Once standing, it was easy to grab the last cart, and bring it up over the hill. Three out of three.