Sam's club mistakes

Sam's Club.

I don't even know why I'm a member. Since when did a family of 3 1/2 need to buy food in bulk???

Must be something about America that makes me think I need stuff --and lots of it.

Or maybe it's because I grew up in a family of 10. I'll blame it on the latter.

I've been known to go into Sam's and come out with a three pack of the "Family size" dryer sheets. I don't know what came over me three years ago when I put that in my cart. I hardly ever use those things anyway. I was so excited last summer when I finally finished the first box. Now I'm halfway through box #2. I will probably be back on the market for another box of dryer sheets about Ty's freshman year of high school.

Then another time I came home with a HUGE bag of baking soda. You know how they normally sell that in the store? Yes. A little box that fits in the palm of your hand. The bag I bought? It's probably about the size of two bags of flour.

Soda? Yes. The good news is that there is lots of use for soda.

Like:

• put some in your fridge to absorb odors


• bake pretty much anything


• brush your teeth


• poor it down your drain to make the garbage disposal smell better

My favorite is that last one --it seems to use up the most. A lot of times when I clean the kitchen I throw a 1/4 of a cup down the drain just for good measure. Why not? I've got enough to last through the rapture.

That same trip I made my worst ever bulk purchase.

It was back when we were closing on the house. I wanted to leave paper towels and TP for the new owners because really. What's worse than walking into your new home, sitting down to use the potty and... nothing to wipe with. If it was your normal home you could grab a Kleenex or some paper towels from under the sink or in the worst case scenario a magazine....

but at a new house? There's nothing. I know. I've moved into a new house like 8 times. So... I wanted to be kind and leave bottled water in the fridge, TP, trash bags and paper towels.

I was at Sam's....looking for TP, then I see it....

cute individually wrapped rolls of toilet paper.

How perfect, now they new homeowners won't have to be concerned with the sterile-ness of the TP. This will be so cute sitting on the counter welcoming them to their new home.

I bought the package. I think there were probably 48 rolls of toilet paper total.

Think about that for a second. How long does it take to use up 48 rolls of toilet paper.

A LONG TIME -unless you are going wrapping, but that's another story...

Mike, my sweet, gentle, war-fighting husband, has a thing with toilet paper. He wants it to be as soft as the pillow he lays his head on at night.

One time, after discovering some less-than adequate TP in the bathroom, he came to me to "talk." We talked about the importance of the words "3-plye"and "quilted" and "extra soft". I agreed not to buy that kind again and to donate the remaining to Good Will.

It was serious.

That package of 48 rolls of individually wrapped toilet paper? It's like a super thin single-ply roll of sandpaper.

This will never work.

I've got rolls and rolls of it left and we've been trying to use it up since Mike deployed. I've had tons of people in my house and I've given them lots of liquids hoping to get rid of the toilet paper. It's still here. I don't know what to do. Only a few more days to get rid of it. I'd throw it out, but I just can't justify that in my head. I'd give it to someone but stories of people in the Bible who "gave the best that they had," keep haunting me.

There is really only one thing left to do with this poor quality toilet paper... if you know me very well, you will know exactly what that is.