The mystery of the missing store boy

I went grocery shopping yesterday.
An appropriate comment to that statement would be “so what”, people go to buy groceries all the time.
Well as it happens my shopping experience yesterday turned out a little different form the rest.
The store I went to provides carrier service from the cash counter to where ever your car is parked. Though mine was very conveniently parked just out side the store entrance only a few feet away from the cash counter I nonetheless allowed one of the store boys to carry my bags for the sole reason that there being quite a few of them and all put together were rather heavy to carry.
This turned out to be a big mistake.
The brief time span, in which my attention had been focused on paying the bill, the store lad carrying my stuff seemed to have disappeared. A thorough search for him ensued but failed to produce either the lad or my shopping.
Where could he possibly have gone? The remaining store staff and I were equally baffled.
As we were having company for dinner that night, the menu for the evening was lasagna, crisp fried chicken with French fries and Garlic bread followed by Ice cream topped with multicolored jelly and mixed fruit. Most of the stuff I had bought comprised of the ingredients for my evening meal which was aimed to provide us with a scrumptious feast but would have been pretty much useless for someone like the boy carrying my wares.
Even if he had taken them home he would not know what to do with more than half the stuff in those bags.
Another motive could be Reselling it perhaps?
The whole shopping cost me close to two thousand rupees, which in my opinions was not enough money to worth loosing your job over, even one as lowly as that of an “odd jobs boy” at the store. But like I said, that is just my opinion, the lad may have a different point of view altogether.
After nearly twenty or so minutes of exasperated waiting, the embarrassed store management agreed to give my money back since several things that I had bought, like French bread etc, were currently irreplaceable because I had picked up the last available pieces from the shelves. Just as I was being handed the due amount there was a triumphant cry from one of the "look outs" posted outside that the errant boy had been finally spotted hurrying back towards the store.
And indeed he was.
He arrived huffing and puffing from several hundred yards away.
Apparently the poor boy had mistaken the shopping to belong to another lady who also happened to be standing next to the counter while I was paying for my stuff and followed her out.
The lady in question after exiting the shop went about her business in the market and for the next twenty minutes the mute idiot carrying my groceries followed her around with out having the common sense to address her even once. Had he done so the confusion would have cleared up instantly.
It was only when the lady finally reached her car and the boy tried to put the shopping bags inside it, did she exclaim that they were not hers. The highly flustered chokra then rushed back at full speed towards the store and arrived with my grocery bags dangling on either side of him only just in the nick of time.
I was pretty annoyed to have been kept waiting for so long but after looking at the exhausted boy my annoyance changed to pity. They whole of my shopping must have weighed 10 to 12 kgs at the very least and imagine having to carry that around for nearly half an hour in a fruit less chase across the market.
So in the end I did make every thing I had on the menu except ice cream which had to be abandoned in favor of kheer brought in by my father (which though delicious, unfortunately does not keep for long even in the refrigerator).
One little mistake nearly changed our evening plan because frustrated by all that waiting, I had, at one point, decided to take up my father’s offer of taking the guests out to dinner instead of cooking for them at home.
I would have done just that too had the boy arrived even a minute later than when he actually did.
Just goes to show how important a well timed arrival can turn out to be.