Fun with Warehouse Shopping

On Sunday, we drove down south into Austin for our monthly trip to the dreaded land of discount warehouse shopping.  After nearly being run down and backed into several times, we found a parking spot towards the rear of the busy parking lot.  We got out of our car, and hiked the treacherous fifty yards to begin our own version of The Hunger Games, dodging speeding cars, and runaway shopping carts, loaded so full of merchandise, the person pushing them can no longer see where they are going.  The games began by fighting the crowds to procure one of the huge shopping carts, praying that it doesn't have a spastic wheel.  Successfully maneuvering through, we flash our membership cards to the Gestapo at the front door and head on forward, not stopping to browse at the opening displays for fear of being run over by the stampede trying to get through the front door.  The next hour and a half are spent traversing the aisles, being bumped, not just by people, but by shopping carts, flatbed carts, and flying merchandise.  Not an apology is muttered, and everyone has the same weary, beaten down, trod upon look on their face.  The meat cooler is reminiscent of jackals fighting over carrion, complete with pushing, shoving, growling, snapping, and the occasional "accidental" shopping cart crash.  The butchers only cut so much, and it's first-come, first-served... imagine that. 

Now, not only are people fighting for a limited stock of merchandise that changes frequently, but there are the free samples.  At the end of almost every aisle, especially in the foodstuffs section, are sweet little retirees in hairnets passing out samples of things like, taquito rolls, barbecue chicken wings, mango nectar, pumpkin seeds, quinoa and rice, energy drinks, and various other items that you would probably not even consider buying if you weren't being stampeded through the bowels of this gigantic, money sucking,  warehouse nightmare.  The worst thing about the free samples is the traffic jam they cause.  If the meat cooler is reminiscent of jackals at carrion, then the free sample end caps are reminiscent of piranha de-fleshing a cow in the Amazon.  Any samples put out are gone within seconds, and there are hordes hovering over these poor elderly people like vultures circling a dying animal in the desert.  If you are just trying to move around, beware, people will dart out of nowhere, run in front of you like squirrels on crack just to get to the free sample of turkey jerky being handed out by poor little Ida who probably took the job just to pay for her blind granddaughter's cello lessons.

Now that your shopping is completed, you may believe you are home free.  Oh no... the most fun is yet to come... the checkout lanes.  The lines are usually so long that people  and carts are trailing into the aisles, further blocking traffic.  Heaven forbid you are in a line that ends up close to one of the free sample end caps... you might lose a hand, or a child if you don't keep close watch on them.  The lines do not move quickly, either.  You would think that most people would know the drill, but there is always that one person who does not know that they do not take checks, or certain credit cards, or who does not have their membership card ready, or who, after finding out they had spent way more than they intended, tries to return half the items in their cart. 

Once it is your turn to check out, you will be asked if you would like boxes for your items.  This is a stupid question, because usually you have (unintentionally of course) managed to procure enough food, laundry detergent, or vitamins for ten years.  (Funny how it never seems to last that long, though)  The cashier rings you up, you have a mini heart attack at the amount of money you have just spent, but justify it saying that you needed everything you have just purchased, and you will not need to return for a very long time.  You then join the line at the exit door.  Two burly men in vests, the supervisors of the membership Gestapo at the front door, are checking every receipt to make certain that you aren't trying to smuggle a truck tire sized wheel of brie out of the store underneath your shirt.  Once your receipt has been marked in your own blood, I mean with a pink highlighter, you are finally allowed to leave.  You once again brave the parking lot, trudging uphill no matter which way you parked with the heaviest shopping cart in the free world.  You reach your vehicle, begin the arduous task of unloading enough food to feed the starving children of (insert name of third world country here), climb wearily in your car and drive home, taking some joy in the knowledge that it will be an entire month before you will have to do this again.

Shop classy, America.