Clear, Present Danger

This year my wife decided that she wanted a Weedwacker from Costco as her Mother’s Day present.

And who am I to argue.

Any dummy can get that done and I definitely qualify.

So I made the trip over to the grown up version of Disneyland.

I immediately put something in my shopping cart, as I always do, and headed back to the free samples.

Note to you Costco rookies:  As long as you have something in your cart, it doesn’t look like you are just there for the free food.

Of course, the eleven empty wrappers inside my cart, next to the package of 72 rolls of toilet paper may have told a different story.

Hey, can you blame me?

Within minutes, I hit all of the food groups -- taquitos, egg rolls, chicken cutlets, cheese and crackers, sourdough bread and coconut pie.

It’s the best meal plan since college.  Buy an annual $100 membership and eat a free meal everyday.

Just make sure you wear a different mask every time so the vendors don’t recognize you.

Anywhoo...

Once the snackin was done, it was time to buy the Weedwacker.

They had two, so I asked the guy, who I think worked there, for his opinion and he said definitely buy the cheaper one.

So I passed on the $329 Weedwacker and I bought the $279 one.

Now it’s been a while since I wacked any weeds, so that seemed a little high to me, but when the wife says, “I want a Weedwacker from Costco for Mother’s Day”, there’s no need to ask questions.

That’s the easiest present shopping I’ve ever done.

But something didn’t smell right and it wasn’t the coconut pie.

On the way home, I stopped at the bank (to make sure we could cover a $279 + tax Weedwacker) and I asked my friend who works there if that price sounded right to him.

He took a look at my purchase and said that my wife probably wouldn’t be able to lift the instrument, no less use it.

“Return it and go buy a $100 one at Home Depot.”

I guess that’s why he works at a bank.

And that’s exactly what I did.

I went back to Costco, returned the present, grabbed a few more samples, and then headed across the street to buy the cheaper one.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the new one needed some “easy assembly.”

Did I mention that I am Jewish?

Let’s just say there was plenty of assembly and none of it was easy.

Why is it that the directions always come in five or six languages and none of them say, “hey stupid, just do this.”

Within a few minutes there were more pieces on the ground than an M&M factory after an earthquake.

It might’ve been all the spare parts or it could’ve been all the screaming, but my wife quickly realized that it wasn’t a Weedwacker she wanted after all.

She put all the pieces back in the box, returned to Home Depot and traded it in for a $33 Cordless Grass Shrubber.

She got exactly what she wanted.

How easy was that?