Two Timing My Loyalty Cards

I am a person you can rely on. I am a good friend. I am the gal who will pick up your kids after school if you are running late, bring them home, feed them home baked cookies, make up goofy songs on the guitar with them, and make you feel guilty that you aren’t as much fun of a mom as I am.

I am the neighbor who plants perennials, sweeps her walk and talks to everybody who walks by. I am the one who plans the block parties for the street. I am the one who connects people and has the good information. I am the Go to Gal and I am proud of it!

I don’t think of myself as one of those people who move all the time. Shiftless. Rootless. Not willing to commit. Just passing through.

But now I am facing the ugly reality. My wallet betrays me for what I am. A poser. A shiftless hussy. An opportunist willing to pass herself off to save a buck.

It started off innocently enough back in July in Vermont. Shaw’s Grocery store in Manchester is really the only game in town. About a thirty minute drive from the holiday house I am there once a week during the 4 or 5 weeks we are in Vermont every summer and I had no qualms about signing up for their loyalty program. Especially now that I have a permanent address in Vermont, our car has Vermont plates, and I carry a Vermont driver’s license.

But them I was enticed by Price Chopper. Was it their 2 for 1 special’s on all boxes of cereal? Their proximity to the one movie theater in town? Did I feel I could connect more with the less polished ambiance and the more true Vermonters who chopped there as opposed to the Summer Residents at Shaw’s?

Whatever the reason, I did it. I signed up for their Loyalty Card program as well. I justified the brief affair by noting that as we were passing through western New York – a number Price Choppers greeted our arrival in small towns along the way where I could use the card as well.

And then there was Schnuck’s Grocery. We were first introduced in St. Louis and kept up our relationship into Illinois. With an in-house Starbucks, ease in finding parking for the Big Pig, and lovely produce aisles, I was seduced, Writing down my aunt and uncles address I held my breath and took the plunge and signed on the dotted line.

Alright, I am coming clean. The next was a brief affair. Simon was sick. We were in Boulder, Colorado and I needed Children’s Sudafed to keep his ears clear as we would be driving an additional 2000 feet up to the Colorado Rockies National Park. I ran in to the Safeway while Evan circled the parking lot. I could save $2 on the Sudafed if I was a Club Member. I am a joiner! I want to be part of the Club! I wanted to make our CFO proud of me that I was looking for ways to save. I took the form, filled it out in line, they swiped my pristine card, I saved the $2. True confession: I never turned the form in. I think it is in a recycling bin in South Dakota.

And now we have landed in Sun Valley, Idaho for a few weeks of much needed hang out time at a friends beautiful condo. But my assorted past is catching up to me. After three months on the road and 5 months of travel I have become calloused, brazen, and rarely flinch when I go to the Courtesy Window at the local grocery store and request an application. It is always when you get too confident that you get caught.

In Ketchum, Idaho (population 3,244) the grocery store is Atkinson’s. In Hailey, the next big town, there is an Albertson’s. Atkinson’s vs. Albertson’s …you can see where this is going, yes?

I have all my tricks down for hiding my various Loyalty Cards. I have a little pouch in my wallet where I keep them all and pull out the one I need as I approach the cashier. Why do I keep them all? Reminders of past purchases? Past campgrounds? Meals cooked? Forgotten youth?

So there I was at the Atkinson’s check out holding my Albertson’s card up proudly to the cashier. She looked at me and said, “I will have to charge you double with that card.”

The shame.
The remorse.
The loss of trust.
The need for forgiveness.
I’m not even Catholic and I am having fantasies about going into a confessional.

Until the next grocery store…