broke down at the mercado

I feel like I've been doing okay with Spanish. By okay I mean that I use the sentence structure of the average Spanish-speaking 4-year-old. I feel like I use the same verbs over and over. Puedo? Can I? Tienes? You have? I am working on past and future tenses, so the people here don't think I am some whacko living in my own one-dimensional world that only happens in the present.

I was at the grocery store, the Lider Express, if you will, buying the usual things-baby wipes, water, coke zero, fresh bread, fruit. I asked where the artificial sugar was and the hombre I asked pointed to the aisle with just sugar. I know I said artificial. And I know it was the right word. But I had to look in every aisle until I found it myself. Then at the checkout the woman scanning my stuff asked if I had a discount card. I told her now, but como puedo tener una tarjeta? She sent me to the customer service desk. They sent me somewhere else. The people there sent me somewhere else. And I know this happens everywhere, but after I had hauled all my bags and pushed the stroller all over the store looking for freaking sweet-n-low, and then got sent to 3 different places, and then the people at the place where you actually apply for the discount card spoke very, very, very quickly, and looked at my visa card, and told me a bunch of stuff about it (maybe that they thought I was a crazy, one-dimensional person? Who knows?) I was like, Entonces, necesito otra tarjeta para tener esto tarjeta? Si o no? Si. Necesito otra tarjeta que mi visa tarjeta.

I was so frustrated that I didn't understand, and I have to ask someone else now, and get a resident's card (I think???) to get a freaking grocery store discount card. But I learned this: I will never be impatient with someone who is in the US as a non-native English speaker ever. I know how frustrating it is that you can't even save the $.25 on some manzanas because you don't have the right card, and you don't understand enough to know what card you need or how to get it. All you know is your card es malo so you are paying full price for apples.

Did I mention that the baby had a melt-down in the azucar aisle while I was looking for sweet-n-low, and I had to open the yet-t0-be-purchased bottle of water to make her a bottle, and the guy who sent me to that aisle (wrongly!) came over to question if I was going to pay for it.

I'll just keep repeating what I said to him: NO INTIENDO!