Worst morning EVER!

I don't even know where to begin telling you about the worst morning ever...(or at least in a really long time and as long as I can remember. Lol) It started with Ashton waking up screaming at about 2:30 am and refusing to go back to sleep on his own, so I went and got him and he slept with me. Well, then he decided to wake up at 5:45 and be up for good. I put a movie on in the bedroom while we laid in bed and I tried to fall back asleep, but of course, then Kennedy decided it was time for her to get up also at about 5:55. Then, low and behold, at about 6:05 Weston pops into my room. All three of my kids up by 6:05AM! What's wrong with this picture?! Lol. Usually I get up about 6 so that I can sneak in a shower and get ready for the day before the kids ever stir...well, no shower was in my immediate future. It will have to wait until nap time. Bleh.

So, any way, all the kids are up and at 'em, so I figure I might as well get us all dressed and out the door. We would just do a really early morning shopping trip this morning. We have our breakfast to take with us (cereal in a bag, milk, and a banana) and off we go. We're walking through Albies gathering stuff for my first half of the trip, and we hear Kennedy just totally throwing up. I look under her blanket and she has literally COVERED herself. Very disgusting. I am almost done gathering things so I decide to just finish up and pay and then we'll go home and take care of her and come back for the rest.

I have gathered stuff to do two separate transactions for the ConAgra promo (that started today) and I'm trying to hurry, as poor Kennedy is just covered in yuckiness and Ashton and Weston are not being their usual happy, helpful selves (could it have anything to do with being up so early?) and I'm just all flustered. I get all of my chef boyardee's and whatever else was with it up there, pay...and...no $10 catalina spits out. UGH. He says I only had $24 worth. Sure enough one of my Chef Boyardee's had rolled under Kennedy's car seat and was covered by her blanket. LUCKILY, the checker was great and said he would remedy the problem by scanning that Chef Boyardee a bunch of times and forcing out a coupon, without me having to pay. Unfortunately, he was already halfway through scanning my second transaction's items, and he wouldn't be able to get the $10 cat until after, so I wouldn't have it to apply to this second transaction like I had planned. BUMMER. But oh well, I figure it's just not that big of a deal. I'll save the money either way.

BUT, of course the problem doesn't end there. He says I'm short $3.75 on the second transaction of meeting the $25. Wha??? I KNOW I did the math right at home. I always check and double and triple check. I am just too flustered to have the time to figure it out...I assume that I must have just done SOMEthing wrong...after the morning I'm having, I wouldn't put it past me. Well, I tell him to just scan the kids cuisine two more times and I'll go pick up two more after I pay (there was a lady behind me now at this point and I didn't want to hold up the line). He says that's fine and does it. When I get to the car and unload, I take a quick look at my receipt and realize that two of the Kids Cuisines didn't ring up at the advertised $2.00. They rang up as $3 something. UGH AGAIN! I just didn't have time to deal with it right then, so I came home to get Kennedy bathed and her carseat cover washed. But I mean, even little things kept going wrong this morning...I dropped Kennedy's blanket on the wet, muddy ground as we were getting out of the car at Albies, as I'm pushing the cart to the car after I've paid, the Chef Boyardees are rolling out of the bag onto the ground (I had them in the underpart of the cart, as that's the only place they would fit), when I get home I realize I left clothes in the washer over night, so now they need to be rewashed...oh and not to mention that I never did go grab the other two Kids Cuisines I paid for...you name it. It was just ONE OF THOSE MORNINGS. :(

Needless to say, I got Kennedy cleaned up, Ashton is napping on the couch, Weston is quietly engaged in his new lego set he got yesterday, and I had a few minutes to breathe and recompose myself for the day. I'm feeling much better. :) But could definitely use a nap. Too bad that will probably never happen. Lol.

Alright, so now I have to make another trip to Albies and when I go I will just ask the guy if I can get my two Kids Cuisines and I'll just return the two that didn't ring up right. Then with the refund, that will make my total correct. I can then finish with my other two transactions. I just wanted to share this with everyone so that they can see that saving money and doing this whole coupon thing ISN'T ALWAYS EASY! I still make a mistake of some sort on pretty much every trip. Luckily, Albies is great and is (at least in my experience) willing to help you out. You just have to hang in there and learn from those mistakes. And, of course, the other thing to take away from this, is to leave the kids at home whenever possible! Lol. I wish that were an option for me. Maybe I'll have to look into getting a Wednesday morning sitter...hm...

Again...if something doesn't go right with your transaction, don't just shrug it off and say "oh well." check your receipts and if you figure out what went wrong, talk to the cashier or go to customer service and see if they can help you. When I go back today and return those two meals, I will get a refund of over $6.00! Definitely worth getting corrected. Also, if you check out and something goes wrong, such as the coupon doesn't print after a promo purchase, but you are sure that you added up to the right amount and you know all of the items you got were qualifying items, don't just throw in the towel, even if the cashier can't seem to figure out what happened either. Just ask for the manager and they'll be happy to help.

An example of when to stand your ground is an experience I had last week when shopping the promo. I did one of my transactions and afterwards, no coupon printed. The cashier said that I didn't reach the $25 I had to hit and that I was $4 short! Wha?! I said that that's not possible...I added everything up and these are all the right items. She had a gentleman waiting so I said I would just step to the side and wait so she could ring them up. She called the manager over and when the cashier was done ringing the man up, both she and the manager went over my items and confirmed that the receipt was right. She had added up the amounts in her head and said I was only at $21.25. I insisted that I added them up by the ad and that they did, indeed equal $25. She went and got a calculator and added them again...and again insisted that they only equaled $21.25. SO...we proceeded to take every item out and compare it to the ad and price and see what was going wrong. Low and behold, the way the Albies receipts work, they group things on the receipt by department (ie. frozen food, produce, dairy, etc) and two of the Orange Juices I had gotten (that were part of the promo) were WAY down at the bottom of the receipt and she hadn't been calculating that in. Sure enough, my total was $25.25, just like I knew it was. She couldn't figure out why my $10 catalina hadn't printed, as I had followed the promo exactly. She did an override and gave me a coupon. She apologized and asked if she could write down what items I had so that she could make a note for future reference and to try to figure out why that particular group of items hadn't triggered the catalina.

See...I could have just accepted that I must have done something wrong, especially when the cashier and then the manager insisted multiple times that I had made a mistake, but I didn't. I stood my ground and got the $10 I would have missed out on otherwise! No need to get nasty or rude with the cashiers and managers though. We're all human and make mistakes. (then again, computers aren't human and they make mistakes too. :) Just be persistent and do it in a respectful manner. :) Alright...Ashton and Kennedy are awake so we're off to finish what we started this morning...hopefully it goes MUCH better this time!