About every two weeks I make a trip to Sam's Club, where I buy things like twenty-five pound bags of rice, jars of pickles as big as my toddler, and a kazillion loaves of bread. Maybe there's no Sam's where you live, maybe it's Costco or one of those other ginormous stores that houses vats of supplies for the end of the world. And whenever I go, I always take the whole crew, always have.. But my kids aren't the biggest issue when it comes to shopping at Sams. Here's the skinny...
The Check-In
After you've wrestled and loosened your buggy and your kids have all
The Bumper Car Game
Once you do get to fill your buggy, you better not need anything or have a question or need to deal with anyone with a blue vest because they are all busy closing off aisles you can't shop in so they can fill them with more toilet paper and antifreeze and they could care less if you need to check out an ipod. And if you think you see one of them, it won't be for long, as they get all cloaked like Frodo in "Lord of the Rings" and you wonder if you're dreaming or actually having a nightmare-where you are stuck in Sams and can't get out. and you brought all your kids along with you.
So you grab all your loot and shush your kids and tell them "No, you can't have that!" about eighty hundred times and you spend much of your trip standing still because Berta and Sharon are having a high school reunion in the middle of the coffee aisle. And it all gets maddening until you get to the wine department and load up.
The Moochers
While shopping for groceries and shampoo and bug repellent, you also get to work through a maze of giveaways, especially on a Friday afternoon. Not only do they cram the place with mini stations of samples of all kinds of nonsense you probably would never have bought otherwise, but they even have whole meals set up for you to sample. And crazy people line up at these things like they are giving away money! So they wait twenty minutes to get a taste of a Mrs. Paul's fishstick or a granola snack or a sausage ball. Wha?? Because it's free? I cannot get past this folks. And of course all of my kids are screaming at these stations like it's freakin' Mardi Gras and they will miss out if they don't get that tiny sample cup of cheese crackers and tuna. But if I actually brought home and made the cheese crackers and tuna, they'd all say "bleh".
The Check-Out
Once you have your buggy of nonsense, you get to unload everything and reload it at the check out. The thing is, there's a football field length of check outs but only three of them are open and no one is interested in you getting in their line with your buggy and food samples dripping off your toddler. But you finally snag one and bust three of your vertebrae getting all your junk out of the buggy, but before you can check out, she wants to see your Sam's ID- again! Because you may have slipped past the first check point and may be trying to pull something over on Mr. Sam! It's just one more thing to do and it seems like I will never get out of this store. But I finally get checked out and we magically push our heavy buggy the length of a football field to the magic doors to get our arses out of there. Only to be stopped. Again.
Check Point #3
These folks are hard core about making sure you don't pull one over on them. They act like they have the golden cow and you are trying to steal it- piece by piece. So they stop you at the door, demanding to see a receipt, one that will cover your buggy and they look over your receipt, and look over your loot as if they're from the Department of Immigration and you might have some illegals in your vehicle and we're just not gonna have any of that at the Sam's Club!
And when you finally get you and your crew out of the store, you still ain't done with their nonsense, because I'll bet you some jackhole is parked right in front of the store because they're too special to walk to their dagum car-like you have to, so you have to maneuver your enormously heavy buggy, a pack of knuckleheads, and your sanity around their ginormous pick-up, careful not to let your crew bash into it as they round the corner
And just when I get in the driver's seat, start my car, put in some Journey or Elton John… I hear the same thing every time..."I'm hungry...can we get something to eat?".
And tomorrow, I'm due for a Sam's trip. And I'd pretty much rather have a root canal. Or a colonoscopy.
Peace!
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