Old Ridge Road resident Malcolm Rogers wandered around BJ’s Wholesale Club in Mechanicsville for over three hours after receiving a temporary membership card in the mail, then left with over $100 in nonsensical, worthless purchases.“It was kind of horrifying,” states the easily-spooked Doswell man, as he stood trembling by his car in the parking lot on a steamy June day, “It was like being at the top of the beanstalk – everything was blown up giant size. I saw lots of stuff I needed, but I didn’t that much of any of it.”
Included in Rogers’ impulse purchases was a box of 6,000 plastic drinking straws, a 4-gallon tub of Duke’s Real Mayonnaise (“Hate mayonnaise”) and 400 plastic coffee cup lids. “I don’t even have any plastic coffee cups these will fit on,” he whined, “but this clerk with spooky eyes kept telling what a bargain they were at $9.99”.
The spooky-eyed clerk then reportedly followed Rogers around the grocery section, pointing out bargains too good to refuse. “He talked me into a 100-lb. crate of Krusteez-brand pancake mix, but I never eat pancakes”, Rogers said. “I also got a 10-lb bag of balloons and a funnel. What in the heck am I going to do with a funnel?”
Rogers maintains that upon entering the gigantic store to redeem his temporary card he vowed to only get one or two items he really needed. “I went in for a flash drive for my computer and an oil filter for my car. I saw two suits standing there, and I asked them where the express lane was,” Rogers says. “They laughed really loud and evil, then said they didn’t have no stinking express lanes. ‘Nobody comes into BJs and leaves with 5 items or less!’ the one guy shouted, really kind of angry. That was an omen of some sort.”
“At the membership desk this woman typed in my information, telling me she was accessing my database. Then she pointed a gun at me!”
It wasn’t a gun at all, but a camera for taking his picture for his temporary card. “Well, she never said that,” Rogers maintains, “She just pointed it at me and said ‘this is for your own good’.”
Rogers says he will not be returning to the mammoth wholesaler. “All the other shoppers were wandering around like zombies, with carts filled to overflowing with too much of everything. I never even got my oil filter. I’m afraid it’s a cult or something. I want no part of it.”
