As each year passes, the world watches on with a mixture of mild horror and morbid curiosity as the United States continues its slow, grease-slicked descent into a pit of heart disease, self-indulgence, and an economy seemingly propped up by supermarket loyalty programs.
And at the epicenter of our ongoing, big-box-brand existential crisis is the one place where you can buy a wedding ring, a $1.50 hot dog, and a 5-pound tub of peanut butter.
Welcome to Costco.
The first thing you notice when you enter the gluttonous Mecca—after scanning your $65 annual membership card (or if you’re really feeling yourself, a $130 Executive Membership card, which is essentially a participation trophy for bulk buying)—is the bizarre conglomerate of smells. Industrial grade cleaning product and rotisserie chicken, all while I stare at the largest television I’ve ever seen in my life, for just $200. And somehow, for a brief moment, I wonder if I should buy it.
I have a television. But this one is 6k… and bigger than mine.
There’s a labyrinth of aisles, with the wildest assortment of goods. At one end of the aisle will be a box of 64 packets of Japanese chocolate mushroom biscuits, and at the other end you can buy 128 rolls of toilet paper, just behind the garden shed, shrink wrapped for your convenience.
Droves of lifeless zombies trudge through the warehouse (myself included), filling their baskets to the brim with an eclectic assortment of party sized everything.
Yet somehow you can never get everything you need there. Only one choice of lettuce, and in the 18 freezers full of frozen meat, there’s no whole turkey. There becomes this paradoxical effect on customers: there’s this illusion of endless options, freedom, and opportunity, but it’s masking the truth that anything we decide to indulge in—from a $4,000 sauna, to a $1,700 funeral casket, to a $17,000 golf simulator—ends up in the pockets of the second biggest retailer in the world1.
Just when you think you’ve escaped the maze, Costco offers salvation: the free samples—a fleeting taste of indulgence, without the commitment (I can almost see the bright lights and the angel’s choir beginning as I type.) Queues as long as the checkout line just to try a mini pancake with some sugar free syrup, or a cheese cube on a toothpick, allegedly imported from the farms of Italy.
There’s a quiet humanity in the tasting section that can’t be found anywhere else in Costco (except the perpetual possibility of just latibulating2 on one of the dozens of sofas.) A welcome splash of human interaction when they hand you your oh-so-desired dumpling in a sample cup that will inevitably live in your pocket for the foreseeable future.
There are a few characters that you’ll see lurking around the sample section:
The Sample Hoarder
The vulture of the Costco ecosystem. The sample hoarder circles the sample station, crafting their new disguise so as not to be recognized, all to snag an extra mini taquito.
The Overzealous Sample Server
My gut feeling is that this guy goes home and watches hours of film of the Royal Guards. He mans his stash with militant precision, and looks deep into your soul, judging whether you are worthy of the coconut shrimp.
The Timid Newcomer
They like to linger around the sample stalls, pretending not to notice the toothsome smell of the mini pizzas as they try to get a gauge on the complexities of the situation: Which way does the line go? Do I pay for it? Can I get seconds? It’s an overwhelming experience to say the least.
As I watch these characters I realize that perhaps it’s not just about getting a deal, maybe it’s a last ditch effort for control. Convincing yourself that if you walk out of this fluorescent-lit warehouse holding a decade supply of Vitamin C supplements and enough crisps to feed a small town, life will become a bit more manageable.
Dragging your cart through the families reveling in their grease dripping, but undeniably delicious pizza, presents the final hurdle: a battleground, a theatre of destruction, hell on earth. I am of course talking about the parking lot.
It’s loud. It’s chaotic. Angry mother’s honking their horns to drown out their baby’s screams, begging for a parking spot to appear.
If you can manage to locate your car, and then weave your way through the warzone with your trolley intact, you’re granted a sliver of triumph. Finally, respite. You take a breath and start unloading all your new food that you got a great deal on.
But then you see the TV. The god-forsaken television that you saw when you walked in, in all its 6k glory. Somehow wedged its way into your cart like a stowaway, and you now have to play tetris to fit everything into the boot of your car. You swear that next time you’ll stick to just the shopping list, but deep down, you know that there will be another “surprise purchase.” Another deal I can’t pass up on. Another reason to convince myself I have control. As I drive away, I know that deep down I’m just throwing my money at the illusion of autonomy, but will keep telling myself “at least it was half off.”
