All I wanted to do was buy two tires from Sam’s Club. You wouldn’t know it from the clientele, who pose as regular folk with an affinity for mass quantities of Cheetos, but Sam’s Club is apparently an exclusive organization-- and I don’t belong. No problem, I thought, my husband belongs to “the club,” so I’ll just use his card.
After entering, I flashed his membership card at the “bouncer,” who was cleverly disguised as a besmocked grandma. I strode past her and flashed my card confidently and speedily, so that stopping me would require special effort. According to plan, she had an aversion to extra effort and let me glide by without close examination of the card’s name and gender. Whew, that was easy. I felt an undercurrent of exhilaration as if it was still the 80s and I had just slipped into Studio 54. I was in!
I breathed a sigh of relief and made my way to the tire section, where my exhilaration quickly evaporated. A cashier who looked like she wasn’t even old enough to drive asked to see my card. I started to panic but told myself that I was being silly. Surely, married couples can share a Sam’s Club card.
I adopted a cavalier, surely-it-doesn’t-matter attitude. “It’s actually my husband’s card,” I said, as if sharing a confidence with my BFF.
“No, you have to have your own card,” said the cashier.
“Really?” I asked, genuinely surprised. I thought that I could legitimately use the card, but had tried the surreptitious approach in order to avoid drawing suspicion or having to launch into any convoluted explanations. And I had made it past the gatekeepers. But now, this whippersnapper had the audacity to challenge my Sam’s Club credentials.
The cashier called an older woman over and asked if I could use my husband’s card. “Oh no,” she said, as if I had proposed a gross travesty of justice, “you have to have your own card, and if someone catches you trying to use that card (she motioned toward the card that was emblazed with the name of Vincent Santiago and I was clearly NOT Vincent Santiago) -- they can take it away.”
The words, “they can take it away” seemed to echo through Sams Clubs’ brightly lit caverns of discount commerce. They can take it away … they can take it away … they can revoke my privileges, diminish my life, strip me of my dignity, leaving me shivering, naked and cardless.
“I can take it away?” asked the teenager. “I can do that?” she repeated, apparently astounded that her position as a Sam’s Club “associate” had imbued her with the heady power of card confiscation.
“If you take his card my husband will probably never shop here again,” I said before I even realized that I had probably lied. After all, the real Vincent Santiago has been a Sam’s Club member for 18 years. He’s practically a founding member of the resistance movement against the dreaded MSRP, and he would never let a little card confiscation get in his way. (Note to self: As a committed truth-teller, I need to avoid projecting into the future and making definitive, sweeping statements about what other people may or may not do.)
By now, I was feeling guilty and busted and the older woman was on a roll. She clearly enjoyed striking fear into the hearts of cardless imposters like me.
“Don’t try to use that card,” she said, “or we’ll take it away.”
“Oh, don’t worry “ I replied. “ I won’t try to use the card, so you don’t need to arrest me.”
She clearly didn’t appreciate my sarcasm and made a face at me. And I mean literally made a face, scrunching it up like a sassy 5-year-old. Next, I expected her to stick out her tongue.
Okay, it was time to bring in the big guns—customer service, and I mean real life customer service with real faces and bodies as opposed to those disembodied customer service reps I always encounter on the phone who have Indian accents but suspiciously quintessential American names like Sean, or Chip or Heather.
Maybe customer service could even award me a member card on the spot and I could bring it back to the tire department and bask in my newfound authority as a Sam’s Club card holder. Once I was ‘in the club” maybe I could actually buy some discount tires, whoppee!
Maybe customer service could even award me a member card on the spot and I could bring it back to the tire department and bask in my newfound authority as a Sam’s Club card holder. Once I was ‘in the club” maybe I could actually buy some discount tires, whoppee!
At the customer service desk, I encountered a friendly, smiling face and felt a boost of confidence. “I’d like to get a membership card,” I said. My husband is already a member, so I’d like to get a card, too.”
The smiling face faded. “He has to be here for you to do that and you’ll have to prove that you live at the same address.”
“Even though we have different last names we really are married, but he’s in Montgomery County right now and I’m here in Baltimore at the moment and we haven’t lived at the same address for two years, “ I said, “and now we live together but I haven’t changed the address on my driver’s license yet.”
“He’ll have to be here and you’ll have to prove that you live at the same address,” she repeated, unmoved.
My story was true, but I realized that I was in a weak position because of my unusual situation, which made me appear like a total poseur, desperate for a Sam’s Club card. I resisted the temptation to offer a blood sample , allow them to run a DNA sample through some Big Brother database, or whatever it would take to join the club.
I ended up buying my tires at Sears.
My life is complicated.
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