Tuesday, September 26, 2006

I celebrated a couple “firsts” in my life this past weekend. I am more proud of one than the other. Let me know by way of comments if you figure out which one.

Saturday dawned warm and sunny here in Vancouver. A great day to get outside, and indeed we did. At least for the minute it took to walk from the building to the car. Joan and I were gearing up for a small gathering on Sunday night, and set out Saturday to obtain supplies and provisions. We had illegally borrowed a Costco membership card, and I could barely contain my excitement as we made our way out to Richmond (the City of Vancouver is too high-brow for Costco) for my first ever Costco experience. Well, technically it was my second ever, but the first time I tried to go in Ottawa I didn’t get more than three feet inside the front door before being asked to leave for lack of a membership card. This denial would not be repeated as we sailed in easily with our red-hot membership card. Finding a cart was a different story, so we sailed back out and walked about three miles around the parking lot before I finally secured a jumbo sized cart. We were now ready to begin the experience.

The first thing you notice is that everything is huge. The first bargain I found was on a 12-pack of Dove for sensitive skin. At one dollar per bar, it was too good of deal to pass up. I now have enough Dove to see me through to 2008. Life is good. I also happened across a bag of chips that was large enough that I could give it a hug. And I did. It was about that time that Joan started suggesting we should think about leaving.

We took our giant-sized cart full of giant-sized party food and made our way to the front. We were discouraged to discover giant-sized lines, but got into one and waited our turn to check out. A few giant-sized minutes later we successfully completed our Costco membership fraud and made our way to the car.

The party was a success, and needless to say there was plenty left over.

On Sunday, earlier in the day, long before the party, Joan and I took part in my other “first”. In order to wash the foul taste of excessive consumerism from our mouths we decided to do some volunteer work together. Joan had found an opportunity to help Variety, a local children’s charity, sell 50/50 tickets at the race track on BC Derby Day. Sunday was another beautiful sunny day, and the track is mostly an outdoor venue, so we did get to enjoy the nice weather more than we did on Saturday.

Selling 50/50 tickets at the race track is like fishing with dynamite. I had been practicing my hawker calling for days, and got to apply it with reasonable success. We stayed for two hours and sold hundreds of tickets, wishing everyone luck along the way. More importantly though, every ticket we sold was benefiting a needy child somewhere in BC, and that is something everyone can be happy about.

So this weekend was a tale of two “firsts”, one helping myself the other helping others, one stuck indoors the other enjoying the outdoors, both with the most pleasant company imaginable. So which am I more proud of? Which do you think?

2 Comments:

Mom B said...

Well, that big huggable bag of chips sounded like a winner (if you don't mind heart attacks :) and a two year supply of Dove is awesome, and your confession to the illicit use of the Costco membership card is to be commended. That would have been a sight to see - you hawking 50/50 tickets at the race track on a Sunday afternoon - Jesus himself was known to to do good works on the Sabbath, so you are in good company :) I vote for "helping the kids"

7:12 AM, September 27, 2006  
Auntie Sue said...

I would guess that you are more proud of selling the 50/50 tickets. The Lion's Club was selling them at the Paris Fair about 10 steps from where we ate our supper on Labour Day, so I know how hard you worked!! Uncle Dan was persuaded to buy a couple for Cathy in honour of her birthday but alas she did not win the $4000.00 jackpot!

9:56 AM, September 27, 2006  

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