A Shopping Miracle!

So, Shana the Beautiful and I were shopping at The-Store-That-Must-Not-Be-Named on Thursday night, and I received a sign from the shopping gods.  What it means, I still don’t know, but it was a shopping miracle nonetheless.

We spend “X” amount of dollars a week on groceries.  After Wednesday night’s pizza and a couple of other things, I ended up with $101 for the week (my grocery week goes from Weds.-Tues.).  Since there was nothing in the weekly ads I felt compelled to go to my regular stores for, I decided to make the trek to Stockton to shop at… [insert evil big box superstore name here].

We started shopping and decided to grab a drink.  This heat really sucks the moisture out of you, you know!  So we trekked back to the front of the store where Mickey D’s was located.  Upon my turn I said “I’d just like a water, please.”  “Uh, we only have the bottled water.”  “You can’t just give me a cup of water?” “No.” “Ok, how about if I buy a cup and you put water in it for me?” “But we only have TAP water!” “That’s ok, I am just REALLLLLY thirsty!”  “Ok, that’ll be $1.39.”  Since I have 5 $20’s, one $1, and no change, I fork over a twenty.  I get $18.61 back.  Add that to what’s in the wallet, and I got $99.61.  FOR THE WEEK.  Did I mention there are five people in my family, three of which have hollow legs?  Nevermind that one of the sets of legs is in UT this week, the other ones will make up for it, I promise.

Now we’re all refreshed so we resume our shopping marathon.  Did you know that it takes me 2-3 hours to shop at two different stores, come home, and put away all the groceries?  Did you know that it took over 3 hours, JUST TO SHOP at this place?  No, there was no wandering around aimlessly in the stuff-mart section.  This was groceries only, baby!

Finally, we step up to the checkout.  I have to bag for myself because bringing your own bags with you is a foreign concept to these people.  So is stuffing each bag to capacity.

Guess what my total is?

$99.61!!!!!

No lie.  For some reason, I didn’t remember how much I had exactly.  I just knew it was under $100.  I fish around in my pocket for a penny so I wouldn’t get any back and I find the 61 cents.  It is then that my OCD exact change freak kicks in.  I start remembering that not only do I appear to have the exact coins, I ALSO HAVE THE EXACT BILLS IN MY WALLET!!!

It was like I’d won the freakin’ lottery!

You see, it’s not the size of your cart or what’s in your basket that brings you pleasure, it’s having the absolute exact change to pay for it that brings you joy!

SMALL THINGS ROCK!!!

(feel free to publicly mock my neuroses in your comments below)