A journey to Mecca

This past weekend we went to Cleveland to visit John's brother Ferd and his wife Mare. Ferd has his own home renovation business so we also were going to get Wedi board that we can't get here in our area. Wedi board is lightweight green board used in bathrooms and other moisture-rich environments because it's waterproof and very easy to work with. Why we can't find it in our area of Western New York is a bit of a mystery.

Anyway, before we even went to Ferd and Mare's house on Friday afternoon, we went to Marc's, also known to me as Bargain Mecca. Marc's (formerly Bernie Shulman's but that was years ago) is a combination grocery store, pharmacy/drug store and has a wonderful area of buy outs, close outs and stuff they've gathered from many chain stores. Some of it is definitely cheesy and cheap but if you search well, you can find all kinds of toys, Cleveland Indians and Browns shirts, Ohio State University sweats, kids clothes (for 50 cents apiece!), housewares, sox, tools, seasonal and holiday things (such as tacky Easter decorations, springtime paper plates and napkins - 2 for 99 cents whoo hoo), vinyl table cloths, picture frames ~ all sort of jumbled together. It can take me a couple hours to walk up and down the aisles slowly to inspect and check out all the great things. If possible, I try to make at least two trips to Marc's so I can (a) savor the experience and (2) really comb the place thoroughly for great bargains.


On this trip we purchased (I probably won't remember everything): a pair of Fiskars branch trimming scissors, a pair of slip-on tennis shoes for Emily ($2.99), six pair of sox for the two girls, two kid's activity packs (one Little Einsteins, one My Little Pony) $1.69, 1.5 liter of wine $8.99, rawhide chews and bones for the dogs, two disposable single-use cold packs ($1.88), travel sized toothpaste and cocoa butter lotion and a bunch of other things that we really, really could have lived without but were fun to discover anyway.

I love going to Marc's and it's become a joke among John's family that I really only come to Cleveland to go to Marc's and seeing them is just a side benefit. That's a tough one. I'll have to think about it!