The highlight of my membership has to be the cart-filling, 45-roll crate of toilet paper that lasted me...we'll, it didn't last as long as I'd hoped, but then again, I suppose that explains the frequent plumbing-related issues that seem to plague me from time to time. And best of all, the annual membership fee does a reasonable job of weeding out the unsavory, bottom-tier clientele that pack the aisles at Wal-Mart.
Needless to say, I quickly embraced the bulk-buying lifestyle. But in recent months, I've found myself dreading my trips to Sam's Club, and until recently I struggled to pinpoint exactly why I dreaded those shopping trips more than any others. Over three years, I've come to realize that those deep, deep discounts come at a steep, steep price. What Sam's Club brings to the table in savings, its stores fall painfully short in the convenience department.
At the top of my list of grievances is the cornerstone of the club shopping experience: product sampling. Who would have thought that giving away food samples at the end of the aisles could lead to so much misery? The portly patrons of Sam's Club have developed a freakish ability to sense free junk food. When the old ladies fire up their portable microwaves and squeeze into their latex food-serving gloves, a flash-mob immediately swarms the demo stand. I feel like I'm watching a pack of starving, bi-pedal wolves feed on a rabbit carcass made out of pudding and Doritos. I've come to realize that most Sam's Club members view the stores as restaurants, not supermarkets, and they are intent on squeezing every penny out of the annual membership fee every time they set food in the store, one fried mozzarella stick at a time.
Those pear-shaped food fiends are so excited at the prospect of free Hot Pockets that they're incapable of noticing that some people are actually trying to buy groceries. And, sadly, the sample stations sit squarely at the at the ends of the most popular aisles, meaning even the widest lanes are quickly sealed shut by a wall of flab. I never expected to feel claustrophobic in a 20,000 square-foot warehouse.
As the feeding frenzy unfolds, half-empty shopping carts sit in disarray, leaving me with the nearly-impossible task of navigating my shopping cart through a maze of overweight shoppers and general chaos. The situation has gotten so bad that a friend of mine, a frequent victim of the same predicament, suggested carrying decoy snacks with me as I shop as a means of dispersing the crowds, not unlike those movie scenes where burglars throw raw steaks to distract the guard dogs and make their escape.
As if the product sampling wasn't frustrating enough, I nearly reached my breaking point around the holidays. An older man working at a demo stand decided it would be a good idea to sing a Sam's Club-themed song at passers-by. The lyrics sounded like they came straight out of a kindergarten special-ed class, highlighted by an off-key chorus that went something like this: "Thank you for shopping at Sam's Club." Genius. I'm all for taking pride in your work, but after about fifteen seconds I wanted nothing more than to see that guy choke on one of the artificial mini-cream puffs that he was hawking from his demo stand.
In the midst of all the madness I encounter every time I go to Sam's Club, I have to find a way to get my shopping done. Product quality was never an issue in the past, but I'm less than thrilled with Sam's Club's new trend of replacing name-brand products with its own "Member's Mark" products. When Member's Mark chicken first appeared on the shelves at a $0.20/pound discount, I was ecstatic--with the quantity of chicken that I eat, that difference could save me thousands of dollars over the course of a year.
But Member's Mark and I have very different definitions of a few important words, including "boneless" and "chicken." The six pounds of product in each bag contains much, much more than boneless chicken breast. I've found plenty of chicken bones, skin, tendons, cartilage, and a wide variety of parts that I'm not entirely convinced didn't come from raccoons, squirrels, or rats. I guess that will teach me to buy a product whose top ingredient on the back of the package reads "?????".
The label should probably mention something about "assorted animal parts" and put less emphasis on "boneless skinless chicken breast." When Member's Mark chicken mysteriously disappeared from the shelves last month, I was convinced. I have little doubt that someone finally found a whole, feathered chicken in one of those bags. On the positive side, meal time has never been so exciting for me.
For those of us lucky enough to survive the sampling war zone with all of our fingers intact, things hardly improve when it comes time to check out. In just about any store that isn't named after Sam Walton, selecting the optimal checkout lane involves looking for the shortest line. But choosing the best lane at Sam's Club requires significantly more thought and deliberation, since numerous variables come into play. First, check for old people--generally slow-moving, they waste plenty of time unloading commercial-size products from their carts. And worse, they're far more likely to pay with a check, and they're no faster with the pen and checkbook than they are in unloading their carts.
Next, scan the checkout aisles for poor people. Having spent several years working as a cashier, I learned the hard way that something always goes wrong with those food stamp (EBT) debit cards, and the problem is never resolved quickly. I've witnessed my share of philosophical debates between cashiers and dirt-poor customers about why food stamps can't be used to purchase booze or cigarettes. The second potential hang-up comes from food stampers who fail to keep track of the remaining balance on their card. This leads to a painful scenario I like to call "reverse shopping."
The cashier rings up a cart full of groceries, then the customer tries to pay with an EBT card. If the balance is insufficient, the transaction doesn't go through, and the computer system doesn't bother telling the cashier how much money is left on the card. The only remaining option is for the cashier to start voiding items, pausing after each one to let the food stamper swipe the card again until the total falls below the balance on the card and the transaction finally goes through.
And then there are foreigners. I still haven't figured out why, but non-Americans seem to struggle when they get to the cash register. This has never made sense to me, because Americans are world leaders when it comes to laziness and ignorance. People from other countries are generally much smarter than their American counterparts, and even taking language barriers into account, paying for groceries is a fairly straightforward process. Is it dealing with a foreign currency that slows them down? I'm stumped on this one, but all I know is that I always march directly to the back of the line with filled with non-elderly, ignorant Americans who are ready to do what Americans do best: charge stuff on their credit cards.
When I finally find myself at the front of the line, I brace myself for the all-too-familiar sales pitch as the cashier scans the groceries. "Have you heard of our E-Values program?" Sam's Club has some fee-based coupon service that the cashiers have been trained to push on their customers. Since I only buy about five different items from Sam's Club on a regular basis, I have serious doubts that the program could possibly pay off for me. When I tell the cashier I'm not interested, they ask my favorite question: "Don't you like saving money?" I've learned the fastest way to end the sales pitch is to reply, "I'm just so &*$%*!@ rich, I couldn't care less."
With the groceries scanned, I'm almost ready to head for the exits...but not before another jab of inconvenience. Four-pound bucket of beef jerky? Ten dollars. Fifty-pound bag of rice? Nineteen dollars. The ability to pay with any major credit card? Priceless. But not an option at Sam's Club. I've never understood this one, either...Sam's Club doesn't accept Visa cards. Despite the slogan, apparently Visa is not everywhere I want to be--I had to apply for a new MasterCard just so I could use a credit card at Sam's Club. Yet not even a hundred yards away, on the opposite end of the parking lot, Sam's Club accepts Visa cards at the gas pumps.
And finally, even at the exit doors, Sam's Club manages to inconvenience its customers one last time with a laughable attempt at security. A non-English speaking Barney Fife waits at the exit, pretending to match the contents of customers' carts with their receipts. I would take the process much more seriously if the guard (1) could read English, and (2) actually turned the receipt right-side-up as he looked at it. I'm convinced I could walk up with a cart full of plasma TVs and a receipt showing that I purchased a loaf of bread, and the guard would still draw a line though the receipt and mumble something in a foreign language before letting me pass by.
At least shopping at Sam's Club has been a learning experience. When I signed up for my first membership, I never realized that savings could be so costly.
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