One of Kaelyn and mine's day-together activities is stopping by Sam's Wholesale Club to eat a pretzel. The food is cheap and delicious— two things I can definitely get behind. We went today, not just for soft-pretzel delight, but also to pick up a bulk order of diapers.
Those of you familiar with "the Sam's way" know that, when you leave, they check your receipt against the items in your cart to ensure that you haven't shoplifted anything (I still find it somewhat hilarious that I belong to a club that assumes I'm a thief. But those pretzels and bulk pricing make me overlook the infringement of my rights). The door-checker person then takes their highlighter (usually yellow) and runs a line through the receipt giving you final permission to leave their store.
This is peculiar enough, unless you have children. Then the door-checker person goes one step further.
Before I describe this, I at first assumed that this practice was native to one rogue highlighter, or perhaps a weird policy limited to my local store. But then I went to another Sam's Club and the exact same thing happened, so I'm pretty sure it's company policy.
You see, when the door-checker person sees that you have a small child with them, they release their inner-Picasso and use their highlighter to craft a drawing for your child. It doesn't matter if there's a line of people waiting behind you, they draw the kid a picture. Most of the times, it's a smiley face. But if the door-checker listens to NPR, they'll perhaps draw an entire stick figure for your child. Nevermind that they're using a highlighter so it's impossible for most mammals to even recognize that there's anything there at all, let alone a picture. Finally, the door-checker proudly hands it to the kid, announcing, "here you go, sweetie."
Kaelyn's not very old and still amuses easily, but she has yet to be impressed with any door-checker artwork. Why they tell these people to draw highlighter pictures for kids is still confusing to me.
But even though this is awkward enough, the thing that still amazes me about this practice is that THEY USE THE BACK OF YOUR RECEIPT TO DRAW THE PICTURE. I'm not sure if they fully recognize that the point of the receipt is that it validates your purchase if you need to return it. It is not a canvas, nor is it something that should be awarded to my child. I need that piece of paper, but you drew all over it and gave it to a two-year old. What if (for some insane reason) my child actually loves that little piece of art you made? Then I have to wrestle it away from her just in case I need to return those 100 rolls of paper towels.
In the end, I suggest that you either get another piece of paper or just screw it all and hand out lollipops. My daughter draws better than you and I just want to go home.