As a former teen age box boy at Portland"s Meier and Franks department store it was my daily duty to push a wheeled cart through the first floor, artfully dodging shoppers while I gathered different mail order packages from various stations and delivering same to the lowest downstairs level for mailing.

Snagging silk stockings of scores of angry lady shoppers was always a challenge.

But I was good enough to avoid lawsuits and went on to snagging a less hazardous position as the in-store mail boy wearing a huge leather bag to 12 floors of department bosses.

Today, grocery stores have hundreds of wheeled baskets for customers to push around. Some of these baskets you might notice are abandoned on various street corners and are kind of a plague to contend with.

I often use one at the super market but when I shop with Elsbeth she prefers to use one of a bunch of electric carts that have a basket in front that holds her mammoth purse. I just chug along behind her as she points out items on a top shelf or behind a glass door. I don't mind the chore. It beats leaving her home. I hate it when I get home and deposit stuff on the kitchen counter and she discovers the Alpo.

So I mostly tag along like a faithful pooch. Sometimes I linger in the dog food aisle too long.

What takes us so long to shop is her navigational shortcoming. She is a terror in tight spots. She holds the record for scattering stacks of Post Toasties while making a turn or running over open toed shoes.

I try to stay out of harm's way and often yell at others so we don't end up in court.

People are really nice. I often urge them to apply at the newspaper office for a stacker and mopper job.

Last week she got impatient when I couldn't decide which cantaloupe she was pointing out and backed into a guy who should know better than try to share the same aisle with her.

It was his fault, she said.

He should not have been drinking a cup of coffee.

He turned down my offer to buy him a new shirt.

Jerry Robinson is now 90 years old, and still writes for our website and newspaper. You can reach him at Publisher@robinsonnews.com