COSTCO
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I don't have a Costco membership either. I can hardly stand to go in there. Here's a blog I wrote a couple of years about a trip to Costco...
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Lining up for a post-shopping snack at Costco [see photo]. Or, as Daddy would put it, "Waddling up to the hog trough."
The anticipation far exceeded the actuality.
I had a slice of clammy pizza and part of a "hot" [not] turkey and provolone sandwich, one or the other or which (or both, probably) gave me gas and heartburn and made me feel sick to my stomach. The turkey sandwich bread, a ciabatta roll slathered with some sort of grease, was as tough and chewy as a yoga mat -- and undoubtedly contained that stuff in it.
I had asked the food service technician to make my sandwich without mayonnaise or onions. She gave me a look of exasperated astonishment and said, "Those sandwiches are made ahead of time" [in, like 1965, from their taste and texture]. "We can't customize them."
Let's face it ... the entire Costco experience is an exercise in utter gluttony. I always feel sort of strange and out of sorts after going there, kind of like a shopping hangover. It's retail overload in its most obscene, almost pornographic form.
Going to Costco is always surreal. It's like stepping through those doors into another dimension -- into a city where the citizens lumber around lugging two and sometimes three huge shopping carts stuffed-to-toppling with stuff like 48-packs of oven cleaner, 96-count trays of bear claws, gargantuan bags of potato chips, and five-gallon plastic jugs of "maple-flavored" syrup. Oh, and 20-lb. boxes of instant pancake mix to go with the "maple-flavored" syrup. I wonder where folks store all that stuff. They must have their own personal food warehouses. And you can get a pallet-load of toilet paper for about 10 bucks.
The free samples are fun. Well, except for the folks who crowd their way to the front of the free food display and then stand there stuffing and gobbling like they haven't eaten in weeks, until the hostess finally [and not always discreetly] shoos them away. I heard one of them tell a chubby child, "You've already had enough, sonny. Now run along." The tubby tot turned and ran to his mommy, bawling his head off.
Then there are the self-absorbed folks who find nothing wrong with parking their carts &/or strollers in the middle of an aisle and then start yapping or tapping on their phones. Who then become annoyed and shoot you a withering look when you presume to bother them with "Excuse me, I need to get by."
I won't mention the legions of screaming, screeching toddlers. My ears are still ringing.
But we go there -- for one thing, primarily: They have good dog food [well, I guess it's good -- the pups sure do seem to think so]. We've always had a problem with picky pooches. Back in the day when we had Eve and Madame Pepperoni, they were particularly finicky and we couldn't seem to find anything that they liked. We'd put food down for them that would sit there all day until they'd finally begrudgingly eat it, then later make a deposit on the living rug to signify their assessment of their chow.
Then one day a friend of Arlee's told us about Costco's "Kirkland" brand lamb and rice dog food. He too had had persnickety dogs and found that they went bonkers for the Kirkland stuff. He gave us some to try and, sure enough, the babies loved it, as have all our doggies since then -- they've all loved it.
It is good-quality food -- no corn or wheat fillers and no "meat and bone meal" or other animal byproducts. The only down side is that we have to buy it in 40-lb. bags. On the other hand, that means we only have to go to Costco twice a year.
Hours later after my Costo gastronomic indulgences, my stomach is still gurgling. I fear the worst when my Costco Snack reaches its final destination. I guess I'll be needing that pallet of toilet paper.
