Consumables Saturday

Last Saturday, it snowed in northern Virginia.  Well, first it rained, then it turned to freezing rain, and finally snow mixed in with the rain.  It was a nasty, cold, day - the coldest day we've had since coming here.  It was the sort of day where you put on a movie for the children, get out a book for yourself, and everyone drinks hot chocolate.

However, it was also the last Saturday before our consumables shipment is scheduled for pick-up.  And so that is how I found myself driving to Woodbridge in the rain with my entire car empty and ready to receive the bounty of my credit-card melting day.

My first stop was Sams Club, the only locally available source for McCormick chicken base (fifty cans), bulk Ghirardelli double chocolate chips (twenty-four pounds), and popcorn (one hundred fifty pounds).  Some very kind men took pity and helped load the car with my chocolate chips and various and sundry other items, including the obligatory and very necessary Charmin.

After a short stop at Aldi for milk chocolate chips (I had made sure to stock up on butterscotch earlier in the week) and sliced almonds, I continued in the drizzling rain to the Bishops Storehouse for 250 pounds of wheat and fifty pounds of black beans.  Once again a kind soul took pity on me and loaded my now quite-full car with the twenty-five pound bags.  I should shop more while thirty-eight weeks pregnant.

My last stop was Costco, this time in the rain mixed with freezing rain.  I rounded up my flat-bed cart amid the thronging Saturday crowds and started piling.  Paper towels, laundry detergent, dish detergent, whole grain penne and rotini, macaroni and cheese, napkins, contact solution, toilet wet wipes, goumet chocolates (I can't go two years without my tasty chocolate), and the all-important two hundred pounds of brown sugar piled my car higher and higher.

By the time I reached the register, I could barely push my trolley piled to the height of my shoulders, and I was nervous.  My car was already full when I came to Costco, and I had just as much, if not more things than were already in the car.  After fifteen or twenty minutes of checking out, I handed my cart over to a very nice man and fetched my car for loading.

Thankfully, he couldn't speak much English, so we just made wry faces at each other through the snow and started rearranging and packing the endless pile of stuff into my already-overloaded car.  By the time we were through twenty minutes later, I literally had boxes of penne crammed to the roof and my front seat was full of freshly-scented boxes of Bounce dryer sheets.  As I backed out of my space, I prayed that nobody would foolishly decide to walk behind me as there was no possible way for me to see them.

As I drove home, I called Brandon to warn him of his long, hard slog up the stairs to our townhouse carrying the fruits of my labor.  In the snow.  After an hour and a half of unloading, everything had made it into the living room, piled neatly and waiting for the movers and Brandon was soaked with snow and rain.

And now I can go into labor with one less thing to worry about.