The $146 Pineapple

Tonight my husband and I went on a "date." These days, sadly, a date consists of a quick dinner and running errands together (without the kids, hence the date part). Tonight we actually ate dinner at home with all four kids and then went to Borders and Costco. We went to Costco first because it was 6:30 p.m. and that is the magic time to go to Costco. Did you know that if you go to Costco at 6:30 p.m. you can park in the first row in the parking lot and that there are no annoying "meanderers" blocking the aisles with their carts, or that there are usually checkers just waiting for someone to need them? It's amazing!
We walked in and went down the office supply aisle. I had seen a really neat bulletin board that I thought would look great in our kitchen and I wanted Jim's advice.
"It would look good, but would it be big enough?" he asked. That had been my concern also, plus we didn't have a cart so we would have to carry it around with us. We decided to leave it there while we thought about it.
"What are we here for?" Jim asked. I hadn't told him why we were going just that I needed to go there.
"A pineapple." I answered.
"What? Just a pineapple?"
I explained that I was in charge of bringing fresh pineapple to the Superbowl party and
Costco has the cheapest, biggest and freshest pineapple around.
On the way over to the fruit section we passed the books. "Oh, I want to see if Oprah's new book club selection is here." I said as I scanned the piles and piles of books. Sure enough, there it was - and only $7.99! Jim said go ahead and get it it's only $7.99. So I picked it up and carried it over the the pineapples. I picked the best pineapple and we headed towards the front.
"Oh! We are out of chicken bouillion cubes!" We use them to make our favorite after church meal, Tortellini soup. We turned left and grabbed some.
"This is what I hate about coming to Costco, " Jim says. "There is all this fun stuff and I just want to buy it all." I agreed.
"Ok, should we go look at the bulletin board one more time?" Jim asked.
"Yeah, we probably should." We walked back over the the office supplies.
"Oh look, the Magic Bullet mixer system. The girls think we should buy that." I mentioned as we walked passed a display. We did need a new blender, the motor on ours had gotten fried recently after 17 years of valiant service. It was $49.99 though, did we really need to spend that much? We debated and walked back and forth between the bulletin boards and the Magic Bullets several times while we tried to decide. We finally decided to get both. We must have looked pretty funny - no cart, one book, one large bulletin board, the Magic Bullet, chicken bouillon cubes, oh, and a pineapple! There was no waiting at the front and someone even came running over to help us carry everything. After scanning my card the checker informed us that we were due to renew our Costco membership - would we like to add that to our order? Sure.
As we were wheeling out Jim asks, "How much was the total?"
"You don't want to know." I answered. "Ok, you do, $146.56."
Jim rolls his eyes and says "For a pineapple?"
Yeah, all for a pineapple.