We have almost given up shopping at the big box discount stores. It’s time. Their membership rates are climbing through the roof as our need for them is heading for the cellar.

We have a membership at BJ’s in Olean, Dear Richard’s hometown. It’s 58 miles away and he can drive it in his sleep.

Since Sam’s Club closed in Jamestown, BJ’s is the nearest bulk discount store. Although, I’ve noticed lately that many of their prices aren’t as low as Aldi. Still, there are certain purchases we drive those 116 miles, roundtrip, for the privilege of buying cheap.

Annual membership is $55. I’m still calculating the cash savings vs. gas mileage ratio. We have a membership at Sam’s Club in Erie, but that option is a little more complicated. It’s 67 miles away, about an hour and a quarter.

Mind you, we only go to Erie for doctor’s appointments. In the recent past, that has involved a cardiologist, an ophthalmologist, a dermatologist, a pulmonologist, and a surgeon. But get an appointment with two of them on the same day? Fuggedaboudit.

So, to take advantage of being in Erie, we rejoined Sam’s Club. For $50 a year. We only shop there when the doctors tell us to. And then there is the Costco membership. By now you are positive that we’ve lost our minds.

You may be right. What sane senior citizen has a membership in three discount stores? How much bulk shopping do oldsters really need especially when their kids come twice a year? I have never claimed to be sane.

A few years back, we did some major doctoring and surgery in Pittsburgh, so why not save $$$ while getting fixed? On those many 300-mile roundtrips to the docs at Magee Women’s Hospital and Shadyside, we decided to join Costco, the Big Kahuna of discounters.

We did save BIG bucks on patio furniture. Costco’s huge selection is high quality, but their membership price is now going up. Again. And we don’t make those treks too much anymore.

Yup, their giant, scrumptious garlic hot dog and large drink special is still $1.50, but paying 60 bucks a year for a discount lunch stop doesn’t make much sense. Besides, although intellectually I know that I save a lot of money in the long run, I never get out of there for less than $300.

Shooting the monthly budget for a couple of garlic dawgs isn’t a fair trade. And there is the other challenge of buying in bulk. Each trip we face the task of loading and unloading the car, trucking it in, and then, Lord help me, putting it away. We came home from BJ’s last weekend with only 12 items. That simple dozen caused me a two-day kerfuffle.

We dealt first with the usual distribution of the cord of toilet paper, and Richard can still reach the 7-foot storage shelf that houses the paper towels. But as I tried to stash the box of smaller bargains, I ran into a wall of chaos inside my tall pantry cabinet. As I opened it, a little voice began whispering, “No, no more, absolutely no more.”

I stood there, stunned that all my recent organization was nowhere to be found. I was no longer in control of the package alignment, the can stacks, the storage by food type. The clam juice was with the peaches. The tomato sauce was with the evaporated milk. The Jiffy cornbread mix was under a pile of cracker bags and marshmallows.

You get the idea. As I started to sort and realign, I discovered a whole world of occupants that I didn’t know lived in the pantry cabinet. Squatters. Behind the pumpkin puree, I found a cowering box of Swiss Miss cocoa mix. Best by 2015. Hmmpf. Maybe my last organization wasn’t so recent after all.

The Keebler’s graham cracker crumbs, 2021, were as stale as the Rye Krisp crackers, 2017. The fancy fig and olive crackers were only 2022, but rancid – I tasted them.

Sometimes we buy really nice things for company, only to have them rot on the shelf. The worst find was a jar of peach jam, now mahogany-colored, proudly bearing its birthdate – 2012. Standing there, in front of my boxes and jars, I was embarrassed for myself. It took the rest of the afternoon to recreate order, scrubbing in between.

Now the stacks are trimmed, the labels front-facing, the crushed tomatoes stored with the paste and the sauce. Ta-da! And I managed to find homes for the new BJ deals in the right neighborhoods.

I’m almost over needing the extra stash that “you never know when you’ll need it.” Almost. I did, however, forget to grab the shrimp at BJ’s.

And we do buy that bargain gas in Seneca land on the way back from Olean ….

Marcy O’Brien can be reached at Moby.32@hotmail.com.