Jul 30, 2010

We are nothing if not persistent

Not long ago I shared with you a story that will become part of our Beach Trip History, a story that will be told and re-told over the years, I'm sure. And Patrice shared one from this year's trip, too (the part toward the end, the part about her crazy husband and his phone).

But there's one from several years back that I don't think I've posted before, and it's really too good to leave untold. It takes place in the same beach city in the same beach Wal-Mart that we shop in every year on that fateful first night of the week (Saturday).

On our list -- because we have a birthday cake for all 13 kids while we're there so that they can celebrate their birthdays together -- we had "matches." Simple.

We always segment the list so that we can divide and conquer it in the most efficient way possible. Eight women, eight carts, eight segments of the list. And that year our niece Kim had the matches on her part of the list.

When we'd been shopping for about an hour, Kim called Debbie and said, "I've looked everywhere for the matches and can't find them. Where do you think they could be?" And Debbie suggested looking near the grills, lighter fluid and charcoal. Kim headed straight there, but there were no matches to be found.

Next, she called me. "I've looked everywhere for the matches and can't find them. Where do you think they could be?" I suggested the camping/outdoor section of the store, since people might take matches camping to help light a campfire. She looked there, but again, no luck.

Kim next called Tiffany, one of our other intrepid shoppers. "I've looked everywhere for the matches and can't find them. Where do you think they could be?" Tiffany thought they might be with the birthday candles in the party supply area, but when Kim checked, NO MATCHES.

At that point she decided to just grab an Aim-a-Flame lighter, even though it was more expensive. She had all the other items on her part of the list, and we were all lining up at the registers to check out. As she stood in line, she noticed that the three women in front of her were all shopping together for a large group, as well. She ALSO noticed that THE MATCHES WERE RIGHT THERE IN THE CHECKOUT LINE! (You know how Wal-Mart puts things like lip balm, baby wipes and AA batteries in the checkout line? Yeah. They put matches there, too.)

So she excitedly grabbed a box, turned around and put them in her cart ... only to realize that she'd just put them in the cart belonging to the women in front of her instead of her own cart! Embarrassed -- and not wanting them to think she was taking things out of their cart -- she just left them there and grabbed another set of matches for herself.

Moments later, the women started unloading all of their things onto the conveyor belt, when all of a sudden one of them shrieked, held the matches up in the air and squealed loudly, "WHO FOUND THE MATCHES???"

3 comments:

Rachel said...

Oh my gosh! That is hilarious! Please tell me you told them what happened. :)

Grape News said...

Cracked me up!!! Tried to re-tell the story to my hubby--I don't tell stories quite like you. I'll have to have him read it.

Katherine @ Grass Stains said...

Rachel, I was hoping Kim or someone else from the family would tell you, but I'm pretty sure all of them have forgotten their Google passwords. So that leaves it up to me. NO, I don't think she told them! That makes it even funnier to me. We all laughed so hard about it later that we cried.

And I'm not sure if most readers thought it was funny or not! Maybe it was more one of those "you had to be there" things, but it still makes me laugh, years later.

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