It all started over five measily dollars. Oh, what I would pay now to avoid what happened. Hundreds? Thousands? But enough crying over spilled milk. Here’s the story.

My little city of Sherwood boasts 14000 residents and two grocery stores – Safeway and Albertsons. When we moved in over the summer I shopped both stores and found the following facts. Safeway was cleaner and had better meat and produce but Albertsons was cheaper. For a while, I bought produce and meat at Safeway but made a seperate trip to Albertson’s for sundry items like ziploc bags and cereal. After a while, I got lazy and found myself an exclusive Safeway shopper. Sure, it cost more but they had better quality food and (equally as important) a better Starbuck plan. Albertsons must have noticed that I had disappeared because they sent me a coupon that saved me $5 bucks for every $20 I spent.

This seemed like a good deal.

So Munchie and I did our weekly shopping at Albertson’s last week. It hadn’t changed. The lettuce was wilted and slimy, the donuts stale, the aisle dirty but hey, I was gonna save five whole bucks! I limited my total to $20 and walked away feeling pretty darn good.

Until Sunday.

Sunday morning dawned over our fair city with a glorious burst of blue sky and sunshine. The birds sang, the cows mooed and all was right in our little bit of suburbia. Kevin awoke with The Kid and snuck her downstairs for breakfast while I slept in. He gave her the end of the Safeway milk and used the remnants for his cereal. Being a milk lover, he opened the brand new Albertson’s carton of milk and poured on an extra helping of milk. Then, he hooked up the dog, bundled up the kid, and went for a morning stoll.

As soon as I heard the door slam, I rolled out of bed and waddled downstairs for a nice quite morning alone in the house. No husband throwing dirty socks on the sofa, no small child insisting she needed to sit in my lap, and no dog drooling down my leg as I ate my own bowl of cereal with just a splash of milk. It was wonderful.

Kevin, kid and mutt returned all too soon and our day began. About half an hour later, I noticed I was feeling a bit off. No big deal really. I mean, I *am* seven months pregnant. I chalked it up to general pregnancy ickiness and tried to shake it off until I noticed Kevin looked a little green and kept visiting the bathroom. We compared notes and were not please. Both of us had an upset stomach and Kevin admitted he thought the milk tasted a bit funny. Yes, the I-saved-five-bucks-Albertson’s-milk. The expiration date was March 13th but it was bad.

We went from bad to worse. By noon, we were both curled on the sofas, groaning and green faced in absolute food poisoning hell.

Poor, sweet Leina. She didn’t drink any of the Albertson’s brew and, as such, was feeling great. She wanted to play outside. She wanted to swing. She wanted to go for a walk. She ended up spending most of the afternoon tugging on us pleading…”out mommy…out daddy…peeeeease!”

Aroung 1:30, I caved in. I went and got Leina’s training potty and placed it on my lap. Kevin took munchie upstairs. The next wave of sickness that hit, I didn’t fight it, just bent over that small blue seat, held onto those little yellow handles and hurled down the hole. Over and over and over.

It felt wonderfully horrible. I was free. Exhausted, but no longer nauseaus. I immediately fell asleep and when I awoke, I felt like a new woman. So I took the kid and advised Kevin to follow my lead. He refused and decided to tough it out. He still looked green around the gills when we went to bed that night but he seems to have recovered fully. Of course, we lost a whole day. One beautiful, sunny, Sunday down the toilet (literally) all to save five measily bucks.

I don’t care how many coupons Albertson’s sends me, I am never going there again. But on the bright side, I learned that Leina’s training potty makes an excellent puke bowl so I suppose all is not lost.