Costco is Great, but......

The receipt situation is ridiculous. I understand they need some sort of system to prevent massive theft, and making you show them your receipt as you walk out the door is their solution. But then they go and put up a sign on the wall "why are we checking receipts?" and it goes on to say they do it to make sure I am not OVERPAYING for any item. What a joke. I'm sure they are so concerned that I might overpay they are paying two people to sit there all day and check receipts. Right.

The most frustrating thing about it for me is that is creates a bottleneck. The way the execute their "no overpaying strategy" forces yet another line to wait in.

I try to have some fun with it as they're checking my receipt. I usually say "I didn't overpay for anything, did I?" and they usually get a little chuckle out of it.

My solution: don't try to skip around the real reason why you check receipts. Change the sign on the wall to read: "We check your receipts because if we didn't you would be robbing us blind"

Guest Post By Wife: My husband gets massages from males

There is a massage place 5 minutes from our house. I've been there once and did not think they did a good job. The person who gave me a massage (I'm fairly certain it was a girl, but not positive) was clearly a rookie and sucked. Yeah, it's cheaper than other places I've gone, but I consider myself to be an expert on massages as with my back pain and pregnancies, I am frequently getting massages. Anyway, my husband decided to go on Monday since we had the day off for President's Day. He came home and told me a guy gave him a massage. I thought this was absolutely hilarious and felt obligated to share this information.
First, I was SHOCKED that he didn't walk out when they told him it was a guy. I did not think he would go for having another man rub him with lotion from head to toe. I guess he said he felt bad saying no, so agreed.
Secondly, I was just mad at the stupid massage place for not telling him this. I feel that when you get a massage, you assume it's with a woman unless told otherwise. ESPECIALLY for them to schedule my husband with a guy and not tell him until he shows up??!! They should have asked him on the phone if it was ok if they scheduled him with a male--in which case he would have said NO! That is worse than a female showing up and being told a man will be giving her a massage. I personally wouldn't care, but would have appreciated knowing ahead of time, just so I wasn't surprised. I have had a few massages by men and it's no big deal, but liked knowing ahead of time what I was walking in to. And if I have the choice, I would prefer a female.
My husband is the least feminine guy ever...he likes beer, sports, burping, farting, etc and the thought of him getting a massage by a man just makes me laugh inside each time I think about it!

One example of how bad our Gov't is

I found a house for sale by Fannie Mae (government owned foreclosure) listed for $44,900. I made a bid for $40,200. After careful analysis, I thought we could buy it for 40, put in several thousand plus closing costs and have it in good shape and get it rented out with a total cost basis of $55,000 max. With an entry point this low, and a solid $850 rent, this house could be totally paid off in 10 years using just the rent to pay it off. Next thing you know, I'm 40 years old collecting all the income. Boo-Yah.

However, our government is not in business to make money.

It became clear to me that my offer was the best offer, but it was not accepted by Uncle Sam. How could this be?

Because I am not going to live in the home, Uncle Sam decided to sell the house to people that were first time home buyers rather than an investor. So let's say their offer was 38,000 vs my 40,000. Uncle Sam has made a decision nobody else would make just to promote social welfare. If it were anyone elses house besides the gov't, my offer would have been accepted.

FURTHERMORE, the first time homebuyers will receive the $8,000 homebuyers credit (the gov't pays for this too!) so the actual price rec'd by Fannie Mae is only $30,000 (compared to my $40,000).

I hope this little story opens your eyes a little bit.

I like Glenn Beck

I am a conservative by nature. Therefore, I happen to agree with most of what GB says. However, I have a unique ability to evaluate a situation/person from any perspective to see positives and negatives. I think GB does a great job of presenting his arguments from a neutral perspective. Of course, the rest of the time he spends bashing Obama and Pelosi. But when he is seriously talking about the issues and our problems, he is very good. Of course, so was Ross Perot. It is/was easy to point out all of our problems, especially today. I'm just not sure anyone has the ability to solve them all.