Have you ever heard the saying that when you pray for patience, God just gives you opportunities to learn patience? Well, I don’t know which one of us dummies prayed for patience, but the opportunities began lining themselves up…

We have become fast friends with the family in our apartment building that we mentioned have been in Korea for eleven years; it certainly doesn’t hurt to makes friends with people that have a car… Their names are Brooke and Daniel. They kindly volunteered to take us to Costco (yes, COSTCO!) in their car so we could stock up on American staples like peanut butter, mayonnaise, and cheese (how a whole country’s diet exists without cheese is beyond us). So, we all loaded up in their KIA Sorento, “all” being Daniel, Brooke, another pregnant (with twins!!) friend from our school that lives in our building, Isaac, Judah, and I. We were quite…snuggly.

Behold the land of bulk shopping, my son.

We had been warned that Costco was always crowded, so we decided to go on a Wednesday afternoon in hopes of avoiding the chaos. By Seoul Costco Standards it was uncrowded; by American standards we were approaching “Black Friday crazy”. We would have pictures of the most intense crowds, but we were too busy being curled up in the fetal position…and if it looks underwhelming please take into account this is a 3-story Costco, jam packed with people who have ZERO sense of purpose about their shopping, Costco employees shouting in Korean trying to sell their assigned products (more on this in a future post), with a toddler that had skipped a nap, two very pregnant ladies, all on a deadline (we only had one hour before we had to head out to beat the traffic and pick up Brooke and Daniel’s daughter). Let’s just say after only about 5 minutes of being in the store we were at a near standstill as we tried to make it through the main aisle, my dear husband, Mr. Go-with-the-flow, looked at me with wide eyes and said, “I’m a pretty laid back person, but these people need to move…NOW”. It didn’t take long for Korean Costco bring out Isaac’s fiery side.

Anyways, we had come for a few specific items but quickly realized we should take full advantage of the trip. We found a good rocking chair for when Asher finally decides to come out (a.k.a NEVER) and a rug for the living room. Living in a big city, they offer delivery for a small fee, so we scheduled to have them delivered to our apartment the next day. We knew we would need to get some more cash out of the ATM for these larger items, since as a great convenience to their customers, they only take cash or Samsung credit cards, so I sent Isaac off to find an ATM while I shopped for groceries. At this point we had 30 minutes to be checked out and on the way to the car…I was a woman on a mission.

I ran around like a mad woman trying to decide what we should get with our limited time. As a general rule of thumb, when offered transportation to the grocery store in a car, we always stock up on the heavy stuff! I finished my shopping with not a second to spare (ok, maybe 5 minutes late…) and I headed to the registers to find Isaac, who had all of our money. This is when I spotted our friends, and they kindly informed me that the ATM had eaten our debit card…perfect.

They said Isaac was waiting at the ATM for a technician to show up in hopes of getting our card back. So here I was with a buggy full of food (that we may not be able to afford) just waiting for Isaac to find me in this massive store. In the haste of going our separate ways, we never decided on a place to meet up. Cell phones have officially ruined us… I tried to think of where he would go to look for me, so I stationed myself near the checkout and began planning for every worst case scenario…

Has anyone seen my husband? White guy, curly hair, adorable white baby strapped to his back…

I knew I couldn’t ask our friends to wait for us and risk them stranding their daughter at daycare, so I told them to go ahead. We were almost an hour from home and a taxi ride was less than ideal, but we had no choice. After about 20 minutes, the crowds parted (yeah, right) and Isaac appeared. We were fortunate enough that the machine did spit out our card, but we weren’t about to try to get money again. Our friends graciously loaned us some money so we could at least buy some of our groceries. So here we are in line, people behind us staring at the American spectacle we are, as I decided what made the cut. Cheese obviously, because duh… All of this time Judah had been sound asleep in the baby carrier on Isaac’s back… cue stressful check-out situation to rouse our precious sleeping child from his slumber straight into a public fit of rage. We love toddlers. No, really.

“Please Lord, let there be enough money for the cheese.”

Since God is kind and loving, our total ended up being about one dollar away from exceeding the amount of cash we had. We quickly bagged our groceries and fled our still half-full cart of unpurchased groceries for some fresh air and the light of day. (Also, amidst all this chaos, Brooke and Daniel found a friend to pick up their daughter.)

We made it. We were headed home with some beloved American staples, a rug and recliner (to be delivered), one dollar, and a tiny shred of our sanity. And as for learning patience…no one died, so that has to be counted as a victory, right? We were praying that the next outing would be less traumatic…

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t…next post details my stressful trip to the doctor and all the amusing struggles that living in a foreign country brings…

Disclaimer: I am sure by this time you have realized, if you do not have a great fondness for the Craft family, sarcasm, and/or GIF’s/memes…this may not be the blog for you. If it helps, we think we are hilarious.