William Blake said that you will never know what is enough until you find out what is more than enough.  Welcome to Costco, Mr. Blake.

The store gives me the willies.  It seems like a chunk of society is hunkering down, getting supplies for bomb shelters that they don't want me to know about.  They buy twenty five pound bags of sugar with these innocent looks meant to convey, "Oh, we just go through a lot of sugar."  Like hell!  What do you people know that I don't? 

But my mom likes Costco, so I took her.  Costco is very popular with retired people.   On weekdays the stores open at 10:00 a.m.  We got there at 10:20 and all of the handicapped parking spots were taken.   It's perplexing.  You need to be at full strength to shop at Costco.  My job was to hoist huge items into my mom's cart.

I'm not even a member, so I have to stand next to my mom as we enter the store and she flashes her membership card.  The whole thing makes me feel like an eight year old with special needs.  But I'm not paying $50 for the right to shop at a store.  Kudos to the guy who convinced his colleagues that people would pay money just to get in the door.  It must have been like James Earl Jones speech in Field of Dreams, when he tells Ray that people will pay money to visit his farm, "They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack."  


Somebody should tell this guy to go the distance.  He's always here, driving his zamboni machine around the food department.  Great idea.  You've got a store full of elderly, handicapped people.  Why not put some moisture on the slick cement floor, just for kicks?

On a positive note, if you fight your way past the electronics, appliances, clothing, and Christmas crap, you are rewarded with these huge bottles of top-notch spirits. 
This is what I want in my bomb shelter.  We better grab a generator, because I'm going to need ice.

Epiphany - My attitude softened after spending a few minutes in Costco's Cathedral of Booze.  This is November, after all, one of the best months of the year.  It's the time when we celebrate the abundance of America.  We remember to stop whining and to be grateful for the bounty we all enjoy.  I have no right to question somebody's purchase of twenty five pounds of sugar, just as that person shouldn't mock the guy wandering the aisles with a two gallon bottle of Maker's Mark, desperately looking for his mom's shopping cart.