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Gotta love those €˜price clubs€™
(by Walt Brown - January 02, 2008)
After much prodding from friends, I finally broke down and went along on a “shopping spree” to one of those less-than-elegant “price clubs” where, they promise, you can save a good amount of money. Clearly, they did, with the Spartan floors and metal bracket shelving.
But “savings”? They weren’t kidding – it would take a good bit of time on the adding machine to be precise, but I’d bet I saved, literally, thousands of dollars. Minus, of course, the price of a freezer to hold some of the purchases and the cost of an addition on the garage for the same purpose, and I’ll probably need new shock absorbers for the automobile – but hey! I saved a fortune!
“Buy in quantity, save in quantity,” and they mean it.
There are still some details to be worked out. I have to find an appliance store that sells baskets so that you can cook 30 pounds of fries all at once. I’m also in search of a large group of holiday carolers, for 2008, (sadly too late for ‘07), to unload the extra 10,000 candles that I’ll never use. Before the holiday season arrives, however, I’m setting aside a nice area – well lit by the sun, no shade – to put down the extra few tons of powder detergent and “poof,” I’ll have my own backyard beach.
I’m not particularly looking forward to constantly plodding through those grainy little blue and white flecks, so I’m constructing a decent sized hammock out of the few thousand Band-Aids I’ll never use.
And doesn’t the floor of the pantry just look like something out of “Home Beautiful” (which recently published its last edition), with those two gorgeous barrels of mustard and ketchup, respectfully. They will come in handy for the 30 pound bags of fries, if I can just hook up a pulley or some such to be able to haul them out of there when needed.
I did cheat and do one calculation, because my curiosity got the best of me. When I bought the 50 pound bag of coin wrappers, I bought enough to wrap $7.23 million dollars. Makes me feel rich! Of course, that much money, in coins, weighs several tons – but no matter – extra garage space, just in case.
I’m not quite sure what to do with 4,000 light bulbs, although a theater marquee out front would be a nice touch on Friday and Saturday nights: “Now Playing, A Fool and His Money are soon Parted.”
A thousand gallons of hot chocolate? No problem. If any missionaries come snooping around, I won’t treat them to the indignity of being cooked in local water.
The two million trash bags will help in carting away the wrapping material from all the other stuff, and the salt that doesn’t wind up on the table should get me and the driveway through several blizzards.
This was the most holiday-shopping fun I’ve had in a long time; it wasn’t crowded, you didn’t have to get “gift wrap” (you have to bring your own bags), and I can go back for more such gems if, in fact, there is such a thing as re-incarnation.
But even as I approach middle age, I’m wondering – what am I going to do with that entire pallet of Metamucil?
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