Last Thursday we had a Relief Society activity, assembling hygiene kits for the troops. I had signed up on Sunday to bring plastic combs. When Thursday rolled around and I still had not purchased any combs I decided to go a different route. I showed up for the activity and told them that if they were short on a particular item I would make a run to Wal-Mart and pick it up. These kits are put into gallon ziploc bags and they each contain two 15x25 hand towels....one tube of toothpaste...4 toothbrushes...2 bars of soap...and 2 plastic combs. Well the first thing that got really low was the hand towels. Perfect...I'll run to Wal-Mart...no problem. Everything else was counted and there was enough to make 24 more kits...but we would need 48 hand towels. Off I went. I felt I needed to hurry so that I could get back and still have time to assemble the 24 kits before the end of the activity. I rushed into Wal-Mart and headed straight for the towels...I know the store...finding the towels was a breeze. Lucky for me...hand towels were right there on an end cap. Perfect. To make it even better...they were all 15 x 25. There were several different colors, not a problem as long as I can find 48 total. I started counting...9 tan...9 blue...8 white...7 red...etc. etc. It was at about this point I realized...I should have got a cart. Oh well...just keep piling them into my arms...I can do this. At last I had 48 hand towels...all one size...several colors. Perfect. Now I need to get to the register and get back to the church. As I started walking toward the front of the store...with an enormous pile of hand towels in my arms (imagine if you will jsut removing a load of laundry from the dryer and carrying it to the folding table, i.e. couch) it was like that. I got about 20 feet from the aforementioned end cap when suddenly several hand towels toppled from the pile onto the floor. As I peered down over the pile, I thought...Crap...how am i gonna pick those up? Just then a very nice man stopped to pick them up for me. Ok..he was nice enough to pick them up...but then he just stuck them right on top of the pile...right in front of my face. Great..."Thank you nice man". I continue toward the front of the store....about 8 feet later...several towels fall out of the bottom of the pile...CRAP. I managed to squat down (I do yoga...I'm a pretty good squatter) :) and pick up the towels, get them back into the pile, which is now a serious mess of unfolded towels haphazardly dangling from my arms. I see the registers...self check out...that will be good...no questions asked. I dump the pile onto one of the only two registers with a light on. The cashier was chatting with the girl at the next register. With my pile dumped I'm ready to start scanning...when he turns to me and with no inflection in his voice at all says..."It's closed". "Then why is the light on?", I asked as nicely as I could. "I don't know", he said, "but it's closed." Fine...I'll just gather up my pile and find another register. As I turned to walk away...hand towels in tow...the next register open was half way down the store. Luckily I made it without dropping a single towel. I dumped them, once again, onto the belt and this cashier (a woman that was much nicer than the emo kid at the first register) says to me, "Did you find everything ok?" I couldn't help the way I looked at her, seriously?, so I just said, "Yes...I found all the hand towels". I then realized she was going to scan each and every label, this would mean being there all night. So I started helping, you know...finding the tag with the bar code and and holding it out for her to scan. Just then I saw a man in line behind me...poor guy. So I turned to him and said, "I'm sorry...looks like you got in line behind the woman buying 48 hand towels." To which he replied, somewhat sarcastically, "Yes...and in a 10 item only lane". WHAT???? CRAPPPP!!! So there I was...with my 48 hand towels in the express lane. Sheesh...I did my best to apologize and then made sure to tell him the purpose of the towels. The troops was the kicker. He suddenly became more tolerant of my error.
Anyway...towels bought and bagged and off I went. I only dropped one bag of towels in the parking lot. Got back to the church, assembled the kits and decided...I should have just brought a package of combs.
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