The Lesser of Two Weevils

Last Friday, I was at Sam's Club. This is a day different than the day I was there to buy gas.

I was buying food. While at the self-checkout, I was approached by an employee, and we had this conversation, or a recent facsimile:

Employee: Hey, would you like to save 5% on your purchases today?

Me: If it's tied to your Sam's Club credit card, no. We had one and it wanted to charge us a horrendous amount of interest.

Employee: Ah, well the secret is you pay it off right away.

Me: That means standing in your customer service line. Don't want to do that.

Employee: You can always call us.

Me: Don't want to.

Employee: I have an account with [local credit union] and I use my Sam's card as my [some credit union thing that sounds kinda complicated.]

Me: Yeah, don't wanna do that.

Employee: You don't want to save 5% on your purchases?

Me: No, I guess I do not.

This irks for a few reasons:

1. Our credit is stellar. We should not be charged 20%+ interest for ANYTHING we do.

2. Saving 5% on purchases is one thing. Losing time to the time sink that is either standing in that customer service line or making phone calls or remembering to pay that ruinous credit card off is not equal to the savings.

But that was not the end of our conversation.

It's time for me to pay the bill. The employee sees we have a substantial Sam's Club credit on our account.

Employee: You know, if you press *that* button, you can use your credit to pay for your groceries today.

Me: But if I push that button, we have to pony up when it's time to renew our membership.

DO NOT, for the love of mike, tell me how to spend my money, particularly if it's the money I'm saving against the time we have to renew.

Yes, we have a Costco locally. We tried it out. Several times. They were, if it's possible, worse than Sam's.

Shopping these days is becoming like politics: Having to choose the lesser of two or more evils. And the choice is getting harder to make.