(No) Thanks, Costco Guy

To the guy at the exit of Costco checking cart contents against receipts before letting people -- me and my kids included -- leave the building thanks, but no thanks on the drawing of the smiling flower and the stick figure holding it on the back of my receipt. Did you not see my kids not paying attention to you and kicking each other instead?  A simple, quick swipe of your orange highlighter down the front of my receipt would have sufficed and gotten me and my nutcase kids out the door and heading to my car so much faster.  I needed to be at my car -- couldn't you sense that through my fake smile and my eyes burning a hole in that receipt as you drew that picture that my kids never saw?

It was already annoying enough that I had to stop for you to glance at the contents of my full cart and confirm that I had paid for each and every thing in that cart.  By the way, did you see the 6-pack of socks between the frozen Tilapia and box of Go-Gurts?  Yes, I paid for those, too.

To be fair, you were just doing your job.  To be fair, you didn't know what I had been through for the past hour leading up to our encounter, if you even noticed me.  I saw that as you drew that smiling flower and stick figure holding it on the back of my receipt you were talking with someone else.  I guess you didn't see my kids ignoring you and kicking each other.

My hour in your store wasn't as pleasant as you may have expected.  It started with my daughter announcing that she had to go potty the second we stepped into your store. This required that we navigate the cart through a sea of people and down a completely inconvenient path.  And by "we," I mean my son, ineptly pushing my daughter in your monster-sized cart with me nervously walking alongside it, correcting the path of the cart anytime I saw it headed toward an unsuspecting victim of my son's lack of control.

Our time in your bathroom was no picnic, either.  My daughter and I shared a stall (anytime she uses the bathroom, I do, too, for efficiency purposes), and this necessitated that I repeatedly insist, "don't open the door until I'm done," because, well, she would open the stall door with me, bare-bunned, plopped on the toilet.  Meanwhile, my son was crawling on your bathroom floor, peeking under the stall.  I was just grateful that it was my stall, forget that he was crawling on the nasty floor of a public bathroom... not that it was really "nasty" (thank you for that).

I have mixed feelings about the samples you offer throughout your store.  On the one hand, it's a distraction for the kids, something to entertain them for a short while.  On the other hand, it solicits insensitive responses like, "THAT'S DISGUSTING" or invites uncouthe behavior like coughing on the samples or touching one and then grabbing another.  One of your sample people scolded my son for this, "You touch it, you take it," she said.  It went in one ear and out the other... but I heard it.

At least this time my kids didn't run down the aisle and away from me entirely.  They were always in my line of sight.  So I had that going for me.  Instead, I had to deal with the navigation of that cart the whole damn time I spent in your store.  It didn't help that it was crowded -- good for you.  That just created more obstacles... well, obstacles in my eyes; I don't think my son and daughter actually saw the people in their way.  And, yes, I did say "son and daughter."  If one pushes the cart, the other has to share in the pushing fun, too.  This leads to fights and constant cart misdirection requiring constant redirection at my hand and repeated, "pay attention to what you're doing" from my mouth.

I had to deal with repeated, "can we buy this?" to which i responded coldly, "NO."  And the one time I wanted my daughter to actually cooperate and try on a winter coat for this year, she wouldn't.  She was more interested in that Sophia (non-) book.  It took your associate to encourage her to do so and some miracle to get her to try it on.  At least she picked the color quickly, "Purple."

And the kicking.  The kicking wasn't isolated to our departure.  It happened throughout your store.  Aisle after aisle.  Where did this behavior come from?  They usually use their hands.  I scolded each of them loudly on more than one occasion in a train-wreck kind of way -- you know, you can't help but watch the disaster happening in front of your eyes.  I didn't care.  I noticed no one else was scolding kids.  Just me... lucky me.  I was THAT mom.  I don't even know what I said.  The kids probably didn't even know what I said.

The right thing to do was to leave your store earlier, early in the misbehavior.  But I really needed those groceries and I just don't have the time or energy to leave your store and come back at a later, more appropriate time.  There is no other appropriate time.  I have things to do on my Sunday.  There's laundry and cleaning and a play date; and that just gets us to dinner.

So next time, Costco guy at the door, pay attention to me at the exit door.  My kids clearly don't care about the smiling flower being held by the stick figure, and neither do I. Just give us the straight-line swipe of your orange highlighter on my receipt and let us get out of your store and to our car quickly.  With my two kids in tow, assume I need that more than the cutsie drawing.