It’s as if I had never heard the warnings. I walked right into the biggest trap inside the biggest Big Box store of all and it came at a price…a $337.50 price, converted after my $2.50 toilet paper coupon to $335.00 which made it all a little easier to swallow.

I left the house innocently enough, still satisfied after my oatmeal/blueberries/cinnamon/almonds/yogurt breakfast but that feeling of contented belly started to fade with each moment I watched the parade of carts line-up outside the soon to be opened automatic sliding doors.

I think my fatal flaw was wasting too much time early on in the diaper/toilet paper/shampoo section, debating whether we needed a new indoor/outdoor rug, checking out the newest in high-tech coffee making gadgetry, boxes of stationary and perusing the book aisle. Nope, still nothing from me on those shelves.

By the time I reached the outdoor furniture, wet-suits, golf equipment, laundry soaps and sponges I could smell the bakery and my knees started to give way. Either someone mentioned a blood donor clinic or the food was getting into my kitchen. Yep, I was hungry and I wasn’t leaving without a cart full of proof there would soon be food on the table.

I’m a creature of habit so to not even pause over whether or not to purchase a vacuum sealed bag of enough double-smoked farmers’ sausage to feed a baseball team at a summer awards banquet does seem odd in retrospect. When you’re hungry, your justifications seem sound.

I held two similar large bags of green beans side by side while trying to determine which the family would prefer. When I realized one was a 3kg bag (think capacity of a crisper drawer) of French beans and the other was a 4kg bag (entire bottom fridge shelf) of sweet peas, the choice was obvious. Both. Do baseball players like beans and peas with their sausages?

Hmmm, I do need bananas. My options are thirty to a bag and as green as you can buy. Into the cart they went. How else can you make a trifle, banana muffins and banana cream pie in one afternoon?

Mangoes–I guess we won’t technically eat eight before they start oozing brown goo into my stainless fruit bowl…..sigh. I started to turn away but jolted back, threw them into the cart relieved. Smoothies!

Parmesan–I did watch Rachael Ray make a really easy thirty minute meal with parmesan this week. Sure we still have some left in the can that has been in the fridge for going on two years that we use when we have spaghetti but imagine how delicious Rachael’s dish would be if I used a block of cheese the size of one of my winter tires on the mini-van? Check.

Pineapple spears–I bet they taste better at twice the price with appetizingly alluring shapes.

Salmon–seriously $18.99? I pay at least double that for a piece this size from Zehrs. You my dear will make a delicious cedar plank dinner. Also, I no longer have any shelf space in my fridge due to the invasion of green beans/peas so we’ll have to get you cooked up pronto.

Eighteen yogurts? Yes, that should do nicely for a parking lot snack.

I started to wonder if the fridge in the basement and/or the deep freeze were full because some frozen baguettes would make a tasty little dipper for Rachael’s dinner (imagine large chunks of cheese and fresh beans wrapped around a sausage, stuffed inside a baguette with some pineapple-banana-mango salsa?) Twenty minute meals by Liz, you’re welcome.

Swimming in applesauce, twenty-four to a pack. Somewhere in this cart is a sixteen month old but she’s buried under a box of 200 diapers, a case of baby wipes and a three gallon paint pail of tea-tree oil shampoo. Isn’t tea-tree oil supposed to be good for your skin AND is it true lice don’t care for the smell? It actually smells good enough to lather onto one of the baguette hoagies.

As I started to unload, thankful the skating equipment had been removed from the van otherwise there was no chance the sixteen month old was going to fit I became a little annoyed with myself. Firstly, for not noticing the items were packed back into my cart through slight-of-hand trickery without boxes, so baby onesies, a giant bag of blood oranges, sirloin steaks, sparkling water, laundry detergent and the like would be rolling in and out of the seats the entire way home interrupting my enjoyment of at least one green banana and secondly, because I had not purchased a commercial-grade peeler and how else were we going to eat eight mangoes while stuck in traffic?

Thank goodness for the $2.50 coupon, it helps take away some of the sting.