Not the Greatest Shopper

I have to laugh at how unsuccessful most of my shopping trips are when I actually do go to the store. Ever since buying groceries in bulk at a pickup location once a month, buying all my household items through Melaleuca and now using cloth diapers, I cannot believe how rarely I need to go shopping. Usually it's getting a gift for someone that finally gets me out. I'm very thankful for this since when I do go to the store, I go in with a list of 3 things and come out with 10 things. So my "home shopping" has been great for our budget!

But this weekend Kaylin needed shoes desperately and I didn't plan ahead enough to buy them on ebay. Feeling sorry for her feet, I took Kai to Walmart.

The trip started out great. Kai is a perfect angel in a shopping cart. He was completely content and never made a peep. I took my time wandering around to accomplish my list, and I didn't get too upset when I couldn't seem to find anything I was looking for. 'There's always Target,' I thought, which was my next destination.

Then the trip took a turn for the worse. After an easy potty break (I love that at Walmart you can fit the cart easily into the handicapped stall.) where I talked to Kai the entire time to distract him from chewing on the cart handle, I wondered why there were urinals along the wall as I walked back out. Then a man washing his hands looked up at me.

It took me a second! At first I wondered why he was in there! "I went in the wrong one! I'm so sorry!" "that's okay" the worker said as friendly as he could. I went "across the hall" then to wash my hands. I hoped I wouldn't see the guy again as I made my way as fast as possible to the front of the store.

Then when all of my items had been rung up, I looked in my purse for my credit card. It wasn't there! I had taken it out that morning to pay for something online. I had no cash, and my checkbook was out of checks! She said they could hold my purchase for 24 hours, when I knew that I would not be going to Target now and would have to come back to the area the next day.

I left the store and thought 'I need to call Ben right away! He's not going to believe this!' ... only to discover my cell phone was left at home too.

The next day I had a bad shopping trip turned good. We went to Target first, this time I had Kaylin with. She loves our girls' shopping trips. We were at Target for 2 hours, most of the time looking at shoes (I needed some too. The ones I've been wearing almost every day for 3 years have holes on the bottom now.) The shoes were on 75% off clearance, and there were a TON... if you wear size 5 or 10! But if you weeded through the massive collection you could maybe find a deal. Kaylin and I did each get one pair for 3.74 each. Before that frustration I looked around the store for about 20 minutes for a replacement for a gift I'd just exchanged at the service desk. When I finally gave up I went back to the service desk to ask for the gift back. After they couldn't find it for 15 minutes and were calling other workers to the desk to help, this was where I got the sweet ending to another bad shopping trip. During our long shoe-shopping adventure, it had been put back out onto the floor on clearance, so I got to buy it back for 75% less than I had returned it for!

No it wasn't really worth it. I think I'll go back to shopping online.