Guilty Conscience

We live in scary times.  Money is tight, people are scared and everyone everywhere is looking for ways to save.  Well we discovered this summer that for only $12 our family of 5 can have a three course meal.  Yes-three courses….appetizers, main dish and desert.  Oh and that’s with drinks.  It’s our most favorite way to dine lately.  But I do it with a semi-guilty conscience.  You see, we get this awesome deal at Costco. Any Costco will do….but psssst-just between you and me, if you are in the area , the one in Escondido has some crazy big arse sized samples!  Like hotdogs…..a huge halved dog, and an ice cream sundae, toast with jelly, pot stickers, cheeses, hummus, chips, granola bars, coffee-both hot and iced, oatmeal, nuts, quesadillas, chicken wings, roast beef. You have to get there before 5 as they start to pack it up. Though if the sample lady is tired she will literally offer a whole tray of goods to be able to call it a day faster (score!)  So we fill our bellies with these bites….but in order to assuage my good Catholic girl image we don’t merely grab and go..no no no.  We chat up the ladies (sometimes young men…when did that start happening by the way?)  We always say thank you and have a great day…..sometimes if feeling especially guilty Chris will really lay it on with a “wow! That’s great…how did you cook that?”  I will often finger the sample box…making faces as if I am really reading the ingredient list or nutrition facts.  Sometimes I will ask the girls what they think and will add a “hey this would be great in lunch boxes”…..its pathetic really.  Then we venture outside where we get pizza and drinks.  The pizza is huge so we split-add 2 refillable sodas and later we have to split 2 yogurt berry sundaes between us because they are ginormous. 

But see at the above example monies are exchanged on site so realllly we could argue that yes we were “shopping” when we partook of the sample lady’s goods……but recently things have taken a turn for the worse.  The girls’ new dance studio has opened up—a LOT closer to our house---and right across the street from our Costco.  So after we drop the girls off for class Chris and I book it over just in time to catch the last samples of the day…and then walk right out back to our car…..we are sick really.  We rate the offerings…..counting the numbers of items offered versus quantity and quality with say -yesterday afternoons offerings.  Sick –plain sick I tell ya. 

And the most shameful part is that one certain snack lady in particular has started to recognize us……I am thinking disguises next time-I wonder if my moustache from my 30^th birthday party is still sticky????

 

p.s. today after a shameful sample run we ran into our local Kohl’s-we had a giftcard to use.  Kohl’s is super classy-great deals on great names-Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne-just to name a few. Amongst their quality products Chris found me this awesome pair of sunglasses.

 

Ok I was totally being sarcastic back there…..Kohl’s sucks….It is worse than a Wal-Mart in San Ysidro(Is that even possible?)    Ours had so much crap all over the floors…like literally someone had walked through the store, arms out, yanking at anything they could and pulling it to the ground.  Crap everywhere!  Pick that shit up! And there were 2 employees working registers and no one else to be found.  Are all Kohl’s so dang nasty?  I had to leave because it was making me so angry…but first I looked in the kids department.  They had furry shirts-like fuzzy furry shirts-like a hair sweater!…who makes these??? Who wears these??? And they came in three colors!!! And they were $24!  WTF!