Most people go to Sam’s Club to stock up on enough food and household items to last for months on end. Not us, we are not most people, but you have probably already figured that out by now. We go there all the time but not really to shop. Sure, when we’re there, I’ll grab a some bargain bananas here and some bread and chicken there and fling them into the cart. Going to Sam’s Club is more of an activity for us, a hobby if you will, especially in the dead of winter like now. While some people go to the Little Gym or the Children’s Museum, we go to Sam’s Club for our kicks. It’s our own little red neck country club (SCC) with non-discriminatory enrollment and some pretty cheap dues. What’s not to be proud of?
First and foremost, we go to see the forklift in action. And heaven help us if the forklift is not in action when we are there. (I don’t like to think about those days. I try to block them out of my memory which isn’t hard because I don’t have a memory anymore.) We pretty much stalk the forklift operators for as long as they are moving pallets around the store. If they aren’t out and about, I usually poke my head in the back area and ask — OK, beg — them to come out and move some stuff around just for the heck of it. And, yes, they have been kind enough to do that on occasion and haven’t even charged me for gas.
Yesterday as we were hanging out being forklift groupies for quite a while, I started to make conversation with one of the SCC operators. “So, do lots of people follow you guys around like we do?” I asked. “No, nothing like this guy here,” he responded, pointing at Sam and wagging his head from side to side with a chuckle. Like I said, we are not most people. Perhaps that is a good thing for the world. Sam was nothing less than mesmerized by the tower of toilet paper they were hauling effortlessly around the store beep-beeping all the way. I think the forklift guys were even more tickled than he was, to have their own little fan club following in their wake. It was really cute that they were all interested in the same exact thing, forklifts, despite a 20-30 year age difference. Boys will be boys, I guess.
Thankfully once the main feature was over, there was still lots more to explore at SCC. You name it, we saw it — canoes, kayaks, rafts, sheds, wheelbarrows, kites, and ride-on lawnmowers. Yee haw! We definitely got some funny looks in line when we finally checked out since we only had bananas and milk in our cart in contrast to everyone else’s overflowing flatbeds. They don’t know what they’re missing, but I’m not in a hurry to tell them and lose our one-on-one audience with the forklift. Most people don’t have their own secret country club tucked within a warehouse grocery store, but then again we aren’t most people.
LibbY