So I go to Meijer’s the other day, ostensibly to pick up some groceries. Meijer’s is this huge 24 hour super store that sells everything from milk to underwear. Usually I shop at Wal-Mart as they are slightly cheaper, but that night I just couldn’t face the dirty over crowded paean to the lowest bidder (it’s estimated that 80% of their suppliers are from China – don’t get me started on how I oppose our foreign policy towards China, but it hasn’t stopped me from making the Walton family richer).
As I pull in I see a newer Toyota Celica in the parking lot. This one makes mine look downright anemic – it has a ground effects package and wing spoiler. Great. What aisle do they sell new cars in? Probably near the garden section.
I shop very carefully, aware that many prices are suspect. I whip out my coupons and decide to buy everything there: cleaning products, personal products, food, drugs, whatever. Hauling out the huge filing cabinet of coupons at my disposal, I do pretty well. I find dish soap 2 for $5, plus a coupon. Cat food is another victory: They seem to be discontinuing the 3.5 lb. bags, and they are marked down cheaper than if you bought the one 7 lb. bag. Add my two 75 cent off coupons for each bag, and it’s cheaper per pound than the 14 lb bag. Score! Ok, so I had to take the only remaining bags, the Indoor less-active cat formula and the Kitten formula. Mix the two together and you get just the nutrition needed for an almost-one-year-old outdoor cat, right? Right. (Don’t ask how I’m going to provide prescription drugs for my husband’s old age. All I will say is it involves a bottle of generic aspirin, some outdated GNC vitamins and a mortar and pestle.)
I ask a female employee, “If I were Miracle Whip, where would I be hiding?” She directs me to aisle 12 where I find that apparently ‘picnic season’ means a $1 per jar price increase. No way. I make a mental note to stock up next January and grab the generic store brand of salad dressing.
After about an hour and a half of wandering the aisles armed with coupons and a calculator, I’m ready to check out. Suddenly an announcement is made that there are additional coupons to be had from the greeters. Hey! Now they tell me? The bored cart lady says she doesn’t have any. I find a rack some four feet from her and look it over. I find it annoying that everything is printed in English and Spanish, and several highlight imported products, making it hard for me to concentrate. I decide nothing is worth going back for, and move to the checkout. With this many coupons, I’m not going near the self-check aisle. I hate them, why should I have to do all the work and summon someone over to look at my stupid coupons when done? I redeem $15.65 in coupons. Whoo-hoo! Now that’s shopping. If this doesn’t excite you wildly, you’re missing a leg on your chromosomes. I dream of the day when I get 6 bags of groceries and they owe me $15, but it hasn’t happened yet.
I bask in the glow of ‘good shopping’ for 24 hours. Then I find an unused coupon in my purse. I should have gotten another dollar off. Now I’m bummed. Can’t shake the feeling I was ripped off. Could have bought some gas with that buck. I’m such a failure.
Heard the new pope put the previous pope on the fast track to sainthood. Can’t shake the comparison that Ford pardoned Nixon….
Well, well, well…Alice Cooper saved the day at the celebrity golf tournament this afternoon. He was extremely modest about it also. How did Catherine Zeta-Jones and Heather Locklear keep their hands off him? Must have been because they were with their husbands.
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