There it was, on the very top shelf in the garden center at Home Depot: the pot that I needed for a plant I had recently purchased. It was only six inches out of my reach. I stretched. I jumped. I stretched again. But I just couldn’t reach it.
Right next to me was one of those stair ladders on wheels that the employees use. It had a chain across the front to keep impatient shoppers like me from climbing it, falling onto the concrete floor, and suing them.
It would’ve been so easy to duck under the chain, I realized. And I could see the brakes were on, so stability wouldn’t be an issue. And it was positioned right next to the pots I needed… All it would take was breaking one little rule. Five or six seconds to climb up and grab that pot…