The day before Father’s Day…Jane sent me to Costco and Lowe’s… [sob]

She’d forgotten. I had an apprehension it might be gruesome.

It was gruesome.

It was shopping cart gridlock near the free food handouts, which were in the main aisles.

I got the requisite broccoli, succumbed to a food sample [smoked salmon and jalapeno cheese: I got some] and headed for the Nitrile Exam gloves…

All went well. Until I lost my credit card and receipt on the way between the register and the door. Someone did see my credit card fall, and gave me that, but then I had to go get the checkout person to prove I’d paid for the stuff. 4 bags of broccoli. Gimme a break. I’m stealing four bags of broccoli, a packet of smoked salmon and a quarter round of cheese?

Then Costco. Scored the short hose, but the kid at checkout in the garden dept didn’t know that cow manure and steer manure were operationally equivalent in the garden. Then he sent me outside to load the steer manure. But no compost. I went back in, about equivalent to facing the Greenbay Packers in the doorway, a tide of shoppers with geraniums and rocking chairs (a special, I gather)—and I got to where the compost might.

The bags are waterlogged and weigh like juvenile sin. I got them onto the cart, and FINALLY one of the loaders showed up and asked if he could help. Oh, yes, indeedy, I don’t fancy slinging those leak-prone bags UP into the car bed with the broccoli…

Holidays at either of these two stores are nowhere I want to be in the near future…