Before GPS.
Before cell phones.
Before online maps.
Before asking Siri where she the nearest pharmacy was.
There was me.
Two babies.
A shopping cart.
And absolutely no clue where anything was.
The morning after moving into our new apartment, I realized we had a serious problem. We didn’t have a phone, we didn’t know anybody, our car wasn’t working, and I had no idea where the nearest grocery store was.
Modern people will never truly appreciate how spoiled they are.
Today, if you need milk, you tap a screen.
Back then, I loaded one child, bundled another, pointed a shopping cart down the sidewalk, and hoped civilization would eventually appear.
I must have looked like the world’s least successful pioneer woman.
There I was, pushing that cart through an unfamiliar neighborhood as if Lewis and Clark had left me in charge of the expedition.
My mission:
Find food.
Find medicine.
Find a laundromat.
Return alive.
Miraculously, I succeeded.
By the end of the morning, I had mapped the neighborhood, located supplies, and probably walked enough miles to qualify for an Olympic event.
The babies survived.
I survived.
And for one brief moment, I felt oddly triumphant.
Not because I’d done anything extraordinary.
But because motherhood has a way of turning ordinary tasks into heroic adventures.
Sometimes courage isn’t climbing mountains.
Sometimes courage is pushing a shopping cart through a strange neighborhood with two small children and figuring things out one block at a time.
And honestly?
I still think pioneers had it easier.
At least they got covered wagons. I got squeaky wheels.
© 2026, Shirley Ulbrich, S. M. Ulbrich, Pages Alight. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.
Be First to Comment