I called David at work the day before to let him know we wouldn’t be cooking the next night because I had found 2 packages of Kraft American Cheese in the Ice Box that needed to be used. Along with Lunch Meat no, one was eating.
I told David I was going to have Grilled Cheese Sandwich. Charlie and David and Gerald if he wanted one could have a Hot Ham & Cheese Sandwich or Turkey or both if that was what they wanted. To keep the Cheese from going to waste.
Gerald being Gerald asked if we was having 12, 15 or 18 Sandwiches a piece or where we going to have anything with the Sandwiches which I hadn’t planned on. To keep any drama to a minimum I decided we would pick up Campbells Tomato Soup to serve with the Sandwiches for David and Gerald. Along with Chips for Charlie. As for me all I wanted was a Grilled Cheese Sandwich.
The next David decided we needed to go to Walmart for a Sandwich Maker even though we had one he didn’t want to spend time looking for. I told David before we go to Walmart’s lets see if Ollie’s had a Sandwich Maker and.
I don’t know about you but if just like going to Dollar Tree when I go to Ollie’s Bargain Outlet I’m always looking for one thing but end up purchasing everything but the kitchen sink and more times than not I don’t come home with what I was looking for because they didn’t have what I was looking for.
Today, that one thing was a simple sandwich maker. That was the mission which lead David and I to the Ollie’s on Denton Highway. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy. I didn’t want a big panini press. I didn’t want some complicated appliance with a dozen settings.
I wanted a simple sandwich maker. And, of course, Ollie’s didn’t have one. They didn’t even have a panini grill. Now, before anybody suggests that I should have just bought a panini grill, let me make something perfectly clear:
I am not having a panini grill. That’s not what I want. I want the simple little sandwich maker that lets me make the kind of sandwiches I have in mind. There’s just something about those old-fashioned little appliances that makes sense to me.
Sometimes you don’t need all the bells and whistles. You just need the thing you went looking for. But this is Ollie’s we’re talking about. You don’t just walk through Ollie’s, find the one thing you came for, and leave.
Well, apparently you can if they don’t have it. But you still have to walk through the store first. And that’s where things started getting interesting. I found a Happy Days cookbook. Of course I did.
Because apparently when I can’t find the appliance I’m looking for, I’m perfectly capable of finding a cookbook I didn’t know I needed. And I had to have it. Why because it was based on my favorite TV Show and makes the perfect Birthday Gift for my best friend.
Then I started looking around at the fall decorations. One of the funny things about this year is that my house is actually a little short on fall decorations. That’s unusual for me because normally, when a holiday or season rolls around, I’ve got decorations everywhere.
I’m talking about 20 or 30 things coming out of storage. This year? Not so much. I had a few fall decorations, but they are packed away and David doesn’t want to look for them.
When shopping this year I really hadn’t found anything that made me stop and say, “Oh, I’ve got to take this home.” Until we went to Ollie’s. That’s when I started finding a few things that felt like they belonged at my house. Only they weren’t Fall decorations they were for Halloween.
And then I found the garden flag.
It had pumpkins and a dog on it, which pretty much made it a winner. The funny part is David walked up and he didn’t know I had gotten the flad so he tells me about and says I should get it. I point to the basket and he just says oh I see you did get it.
So the sandwich maker never made it into the cart because of course they didn’t have one. But a Happy Days cookbook did. Fall garden flag did. Halloween things did. Even though I prefer to shop and decorate for one Holiday at a time.
And that pumpkin-and-dog garden flag definitely did. This is how Ollie’s works. You walk through the door thinking you’re looking for one thing, and before you know it, you’re looking at things you didn’t even know existed five minutes earlier.
If your like me you go in for one thing and you leave with fifteen. And somehow you still didn’t get the one thing you came for. That may be the most Ollie’s shopping experience possible.
There was another part of the trip that made me laugh, too. We have the Ollie’s app. We’ve had the app since pretty much the beginning. And in all the time we’ve had it, we haven’t really gotten anything out of it.
So I have to ask myself: Why do I even have this app? They tell you there are coupons and special deals and things you can get through the app. But here’s my problem. I’m tired of every store wanting me to download another app. I’ve already got enough apps on my phone.
Pretty soon my phone is going to be nothing but apps, and I’m going to wonder if there’s actually room left for the phone to do anything else. I don’t know about you but I don’t think you should have to walk into every store in America carrying a phone full of their individual apps just to get a coupon or a discount.
Sometimes I just want to walk into a store, find what I’m looking for, pay for it, and go home. Especially when what I was looking for was a simple sandwich maker that they didn’t even have.
So no, we didn’t come home with the sandwich maker. But we did come home with a cookbook, fall decorations, Halloween finds, and a pumpkin-and-dog garden flag. And that is exactly why you have to be careful when you go to Ollie’s.
Because you may walk in with one thing on your mind… …and walk out with everything but that one thing. Which is why I am going to take a page from Charlie’s book and when walking into a store look my credit card into the car so I can purchase anything.
Grateful, Thankful, and Blessed
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates