When Sampling Goes Too Far

Years ago, Ryan and I stopped going to Costco after an unfortunate incident involving the purchase of a fifty-gallon tub of mustard.  That could be an exaggeration, but somewhere, that mustard is still only half empty.


This year, we decided we could try a membership again, since we now have extra little people to throw food on the floor feed.


I am a little obsessed; squeezable applesauce, giant bags of sweet potato fries, a wide variety of cheese snacks (we're paying for our membership in cheese savings alone, for real), I could go on and on.


If you aren't a Costco member, you might not be aware that on the weekends they offer free meals.  Those meals masquerade as sample stations scattered throughout the stores, but I've come to learn that they are most definitely meals for many, many of the people that frequent Costco each Saturday and Sunday.


In one visit, I overheard someone complaining about being in line for over ten minutes.  That was for a sample of Costco's chicken salad.  Another woman was berating the poor sample server because the shopper had been back to the sample station three times and hadn't gotten a sample yet (cream puffs).


Finally, I had the audacity to need some flour.  A man was sitting on the flour, eating something out of a little white sample cup.  I politely (I thought) asked him man if I could grab some flour.  I smiled, expecting him to smile back.


"I'm SITTING here!" he retorted, huffing and puffing and shooting eye daggers with me as he stood up.  He continued to mumble under his breath, "People can SIT around here."


I'm still enamored with Costco.  Now, though, I try to schedule our rendezvous for weekdays, preferably early afternoon, when I don't have to play cart bumper cars around the ends of each aisle.


Then you have the gas lines...

Dylan eating his Costco apple

at home

A Visit to the Dark Side

Truth is, I’m a Target girl. I wish I could say that I was a Lilly Pulitzer girl or a Jimmy Choo girl but, alas, my budget is a little much smaller than my wish list dictates, so I spend more time in Target than I do in many other stores. I hadn’t stepped into any other big-box discount stores in who knows how long until last week. However, I had an unused gift card, and free money is always a good thing, so I journeyed over to another store, one I’ve always thought of as the dark side of discount retailers.

It was wonderful, and we all lived happily ever after.

Just kidding.

Before we even got out of the car, I witnessed a man scream profanities at a women in a car who had the gall to attempt to back up her car too closely to when he wanted to back up his car. Thankfully, Abbey was still in the car for that, or I’m sure she would have added a few new words to her vocabulary. Yet, I slid Dylan into his stroller, gift card tucked into my wallet, and guided Abbey into the store.

Something about it reminded me of Ikea when I first entered (maybe the mass quantities of each items stacked neatly in rows), so I thought that I might have to reevaluate my Target bias. After all, I love me some Ikea. However, after traipsing through the giant store, questioning two not-so-helpful employees, and finally finding the right aisle, I realized this was not Ikea. I found some of the layout confusing, but maybe that’s just me. What’s not just me is getting to the right place, and finding the hanger for the 30 Day Shred DVD completely empty.

This had to be a mistake. There were at least eighty of every other thing in the store. How could the one thing I came into the store to find be sold out? No mistake. I was able to get Abbey two games and a couple packets of stickers, because I never want to go back there.

A successful trip to Target the next day allowed me to move on to Level 2 of the Shred (my on-demand only has the first level available.)

Am I a Target snob? Can someone who spends so much time at a discount store be a snob? Why does Ikea inspire happy thoughts and the unnamed-discount-store elicit a cold sweat?*

*I won’t even get into the issues the store has had with discrimination and poor treatment of employees.

And some pictures from our latest visit at Grandma & Grandpa's!

playing in the new sandbox

watching his idol big sister

talking to Dylan

cooling off

doesn't every kid love drinking from hoses and sprinklers?

(please say it's not just my child)

sweet boy

hanging out with my buddy Honeybear