I'm too sexy for my Costco

I needed some stuff yesterday, so I went to Costco.

I stood in line under the bright lights, behind someone buying a dump truck full of toilet paper and next to another someone loading a 70-pound box of Cheez-Its onto the conveyor.

And I thought, there is nowhere on earth less sexy than Costco.

Not that I'm particularly focused on my allure while running errands, but the 100-count boxes of tampons along with beeping forklifts and screaming toddlers just kills any momentary flicker of cool I might be lucky enough to experience while roaming the towering, shrink-wrapped aisles.

Oh, sure. Costco carries roses and cashmere and wine. But you have to load it into a cart the size of a tank. Along with your crock of Beano and magnum of fish oil.

And then there's the Costco "restaurant". A candle-lit bistro with a single gerbera daisy on each table it is not. Here you have your hard plastic benches and your massive slabs of dripping cheese pizza and your churros that are as long as...well, they're long.

Costco simultaneously grosses me out and lures me into into its echoey, merchandise-packed bowels. Whenever I'm there I can't help wishing I were, instead, strolling from small, aesthetically-pleasing shop to small, aesthetically-pleasing shop with my baguette, flowers and merlot slung over my shoulder in a canvas bag.

We're Americans, though. So we make our Costco runs and buy our cantaloupe-sized poppyseed muffins and then have to get our clothes at Costco too because they sell plenty of (only) pants with waists whose measurements are double the inseams.

And if we're having a day when we feel remotely sexy, just the slightest bit fetching, and we come out to our car, among acres of other cars, where a crow has taken a giant crap on the back, right window... we are, once again, humbled.

Comments

[noble pig]

I love me my Costco! I'll give up sexy for my Costco run.

[Leslie]

Have you ever noticed the birds in the Costco parking lot? I've never seen them in other parking lots, but at Costco they pick at the air vents of new arrivals, and await droppings from hotdog-filled kid hands.

I usually make my Jay go to Costco for me, I just don't enjoy it, and somehow, always feel the urge to buy a new set of pots and pans or tires, or just something.

[csquaredplus3]

Ahhhhhh! That was great Angie! Every word! The frickin' crow too - it either craps on the car OR it blocks my ability to load my shit in the car because it's eating/protecting the half of a hot dog some kid dropped right by MY CAR.

[Leah]

hahahahahaa, brilliant. i remember hobbling around costco during my last pregnancy with a severe groin strain and buying giant bags of epsom salts--HOT! also standing helplessly by the bags of dog food unable to lift until some random lady offered to help me (there never seems to be any employees in the actual store part, yet there are ass-gillions of them at the check out.)

again, the descriptive imagery of this post is great.

[Tootsie Farklepants]

Even Costco's parking lot birds are bulk sized.

My husband and I are not allowed to go together to Costco. We will spend twice as much than if we'd just gone alone.

[Michele]

We are such Costco Achievers also.

When we moved from the Seattle area to an hour south of Indianapolis I thought our Costco days were over. Then we found one. We were thrilled! Once a month we would load the ice chest into the back of the car to make the hour and a half drive to get our Costco fix. Never on Sundays though. Can't buy booze on Sundays in Indiana.

[Catherine]

I love Costco. I will be stocking up soon on their diapers in huge moving box sized boxes as well as wipes...Enough to last four months in one box! :)
My kids love going there on Saturdays....I don't ever have to feed them lunch for all the samples running around the store.
But I always feel teh need to buy the gallon of Peanbut butter (although it's "ONLY" $5.65 ) The amounts of toilet paper we go through with a pre teen daughter, myself (pregnant) and my son who seems to think that TP should be used to clean up spilled milk and anything else in the houes (why?? I don't know, it must be something he learned at his moms house honestly!)
We go through about 20 rolls a week...That's insane for a family of five..honestly!

[Carrie]

I feel like I should be saying "mooooooo."

This is so true.

[FortyMama]

God that was great! It is all so true, yet we'll all still keep going back to our beloved Costco. Slap me for saying this, but I never eat there because I don't want to be lumped in with all the people who are sitting on those picnic tables.

[Heather]

you're both reminding and terrifying me that I have to go there soon. It's either got to be Sunday, or next Friday, facing Thanksgiving crowds. A Faustian choice if ever there were one.

[vodkamom]

I know what you mean! We hate it and love it at the same time. I just go for the free samples.

[Melanie @ Mel, A Dramatic Mommy]

No one ever gets hit on in Costco. But, if I'm really bored I'll go just to wander and let my son gorge on the samples. *guilty*

[Nora Bee]

I cannot take Costco. If it were closer maybe I would overcome my aversion but I simply cannot. We thought about joining a few months ago but then I went in and started hyperventilating and figured Fred Meyer would just have to do for now...

[Wendy]

Not sexy? What about those giant weiners?! Luv those!

[kcinnova]

I think the giant crows only live at the Seattle area Costcos - we don't seem to have them here. My dh likes to go on Saturday just to eat the free lunch provided by grazing his way throughout the store. I prefer a quick mid-day trip during the week to stock up on low priced milk and a lot of other stuff that may not be low priced but comes in big enough quantities to feed 4 teen/pre-teen boys. Sexy I am not!
I like your vision of how shopping SHOULD be...

[Cass]

Costco is hot. So is BJ's. Don't even get me started about Sam's Club.