I joined CostCo this past year, what they refer to as a \u2018buying club\u2019, meaning you can join the fun for a fee.\u00a0 For years I\u2019ve resisted.\u00a0 I usually don\u2019t pay my stores for the privilege of shopping, but friends had been buying stuff for me when they went and I finally let guilt wear me down.<\/p>\n
CostCo, for those of you who are accustomed to express lines or Quickie Marts, is a bit jarring.\u00a0 You don\u2019t just grab a basket and run in for a couple of items.\u00a0 No, you get a cart the size of a tractor trailer rig.\u00a0 Within seconds of entering the warehouse, passing through their version of TSA, you are swept into a traffic nightmare comparable to Seattle at rush hour.\u00a0 Folks in quest of huge cost savings, are investing in giant food rations that are stacked alongside electronics, auto parts, hardware, toys and clothing, sporting goods, then grunted along corridors more and more jammed as we maneuver bravely toward the checkout assembly line while maniac kamikaze cart wielders slash blindly toward free food samples, totally risk averse and apparently near starvation.\u00a0 The stopping distance of one of these overloaded vehicles is about that of the Exxon Valdez.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have statistics on pedestrian fatalities, but presumably it is a national scandal.<\/p>\n
All in all it\u2019s a surreal shopping scene.\u00a0 A year\u2019s supply of rations piled high, mammoth sized jugs of perishables whose prices don\u2019t portend the probability of spoilage, super sized everything\u00a0 — we Lilliputians struggle with 200 pound loads, bumpercars on steroids, everyone carbon-loaded and dreading the deathmaze of the parking lot zoo waiting open jawed for us after the cart inspection at the exit.\u00a0 I can only assume most head for a storage unit to unpack the booty.<\/p>\n
Every time I go I feel awash in shopping shame.\u00a0 Imagine, say, a Sudanese immigrant or a fellow South Ender, stumbling onto this scene, aghast at the sight of gallon jars of everything from kalimata olives to pickled okra.\u00a0 I know I have to pay a little more at Tyee Store — okay, a lot more — but sometimes I don\u2019t need to stock up like a survivalist.\u00a0 Sometimes I just want the small jar of pickles.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what Tyee Store\u2019s got \u2026. and so far they don\u2019t charge me to join their buyer club just to come in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I joined CostCo this past year, what they refer to as a \u2018buying club\u2019, meaning you can join the fun for a fee.\u00a0 For years I\u2019ve resisted.\u00a0 I usually don\u2019t pay my stores for the privilege of shopping, but friends had been buying stuff for me when they went and I finally let guilt wear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1946,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945\/revisions\/1946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}