WE DO NOT GO TO WAL-MART ON SATURDAY

Except, well, I did.

For the past 17 years, I have been fortunate to be a stay at home mom. Well, for most of that time. This means that I get to do my grocery shopping (and my recreational shopping) during the week when the stores and malls are not very crowded. I have become so accustomed to shopping during the week that, on the rare occasion we shop on weekends, the crowds make me pretty jittery and I don't enjoy it. NOT. ONE. BIT.

As the kids were growing up, if they asked to go to Wal-Mart for anything on a weekend, I woud always say "We do not go to Wal-Mart on Saturday, because we can go through the week, and I am not fighting that crowd on weekends if I don't have to." I know. I'm a really mean mom.

Seriously, the thought of shopping at Wal-Mart, or any grocery store, on Saturdy has always made me feel a little...well...a little scared. Because I don't like crowds. And I also lose my patience real easily when people don't follow basic shopping cart etiquette. And when the stores are very crowded you are sure to run into many people who don't follow basic shopping cart etiquette. We'll discuss Basic Shopping Cart Etiquette at a later date.

So late last week when we were out of lots of stuff, I kept thinking I'd wait until Monday to go to the store. Plus payday isn't until Monday, so that made a little bit of sense too. When my daughter would say "Mother, when will we have oranges again? When, mother? When will there be broccoli in the house again? Please, mother, please may we have fresh produce again soon?" or something like that; I'd say "Soon dear one. But we must not enter the gates of the all powerful evil mega mart on a weekend. For surely doom and gloom await us there, if we enter those gates on this, the final day of the week." Or something like that.

But Saturday evening came and I was craving an orange and my poor pitiful daughter was growing weak from lack of fresh produce so I said "Surely I can do this. Surely if I am brave, I can enter the gates of the all powerful mega mart and buy some food stuffs for my suffering children. For I am a mother. I am strong and selfless." Actually, I said "What the heck, I got nothin' better to do." I must add that it had been three, maybe four, weeks, since I actually did a full grocery trip. We went away on vacation a couple weeks ago and during the week leading up to that, I kept telling the kids "I'm not buying many groceries this week because we're leaving and we don't need food sitting in the house spoiling." So we really needed lots of stuff. I'll also add that my husband is out of the country right now, so when I say I had nothing better to do, I really mean I had nothing better to do.

So I started at Sam's club, figuring most people would be eating supper at that time so it wouldn't be that crowded. Turns out I was right. It wasn't bad. The worst part was running into my friend who has seven children and noticing that I had about four times the amount of groceries in my cart as she did. "I CANNOT BELIEVE I have more crap in my cart than the woman with seven kids," I told her. And she confessed that she had already spent two hours at Wal-Mart so I shouldn't worry.

Not only did I forget milk at Sam's; I forgot to even check how much milk we had at home, because we keep our extra milk in the basement refrigerator, and I simply could not trouble myself to go down those stairs. So while I was going into Wal-Mart for a few things that I needed in small quantities, I picked up three gallons of milk. I usually buy four at a time, and since I couldn't remember the last time I bought milk, I thought three would be a safe number.

Did any of you stick some milk in my fridge?

'Cause turns out, I had three whole gallons already in there. Now I have SIX - yes that's half a dozen - gallons of skim milk in my refrigerator. Thankfully their expiration dates are more than a week apart. It looks like I will need to bake some cookies because that's the only way I'll be able to work my way through my share of SIX gallons of skim milk.

And, since I couldn't bother to go down the basement stairs to take inventory before I went shopping (because we keep our overstock in the cabinets down there) I also bought a few other things I didn't need.

Like peanut butter. I now have FOUR 40 ounce jars of Jif peanut butter.

And 100 calorie pack chips for Kayla's lunch. I have, well, I didn't count, but I have lots of those.

And jelly. I have THREE 32 ounce jars of grape jelly.

And Gatorade. I now have a whole case plus about two thirds of a case of the small Gatorade bottles.

I am thinking of opening a homeless shelter.

I do NOT, however, have enough garbage bags to get through the week 'cause I totally forgot those. Nor do I have spaghetti sauce, and that's a major staple in this house. Ditto with noodles.

But we have oranges, strawberries, apples, pineapple, bananas and fresh broccoli, so my daughter is beginning to have a spring in her step again. Plus I bought some oatmeal cream pies and she totally loves those.

What is the point of this long, ever important post?

The point is...there is no point. I sit here typing so I don't have to do laundry and mop my kitchen floor.

And I can't think of a better reason to blog.