Adventures into Costcoland

I have one friend who thinks that going to church on Sunday's equals adulthood. Another simply thinks the act of getting married means you have truly crossed that threshold. For H and me that trek is the one to Costco. Nothing screams you have entered adulthood more to us than obtaining a membership to one of those buy-in-bulk stores. It just seems like you are so prepared and thinking economically. Like you really know what you want and how much you need and at what price. It's so...suburban.

A Costco has been built near our house. Oh dreaded curses. Why?! We already have a BJ's and Sam's Club (NEVER!). We don't NEED a Costco. I grumbled and muttered my way through it's construction the last few months. It sucking up parking space as it glommed on to our local outlet mall. Stupid Costco. Land of bulk and all things I don't have a need for. Then the buzz began.

COSTCO is OPEN!!! My neighbors all cheered. They talked of the exciting deals on diapers and wipes. I flashed back to how in college my roommate and I would use his Mom's club card and wander around eating free snacks on a slow Sunday afternoon. That was kind of fun. The allure of Costco and it's grandeur in the world of large pallets of well, stuff began to get to me. I want to go to COSTCO!!! I convinced H to check it out and to my shock, he had never been to one. Never been to giant, super, mega-land Costco?! Well we simply must go!

We packed up the car, T.D. and all, and headed in. We roamed the aisles looking up heavenward at stacked reams of office paper, refrigerators at unheard of prices (read cheap!), and tried some tasty desserts. I laughed at the immense blocks of cheese and gasped at the truly low prices on baby wipes. Organic chicken was not bad either. T.D. got a bit fussy towards the end and H tossed her his keys to play with to calm her down. She was not swayed by the 200 count boxes of tampons or cases of potted meat. She only seemed enthused by the tiny Lily Pulitzer dresses for only $21.99. Sadly not in her tiny dictator size. She might have done it then in anger. We simply don't know.

All we know is that upon exiting the store, sans membership, H exclaimed he no longer had his keys. That's right. We lost his car keys in giant, mega behemoth- land that is Costco. We cringed and sighed. He said rather grimly, "I'm going in." I tended to an ever increasingly impatient T.D. She was in no mood to hang out in front of Costco. It's not dignified for a dictator to be seen there. About fifteen minutes later H came out defeated. No keys. I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm going. I can find them."

Armed with experience of the throwing distance of keys by T.D. and the level I knew I would find those keys. That and my special sense a la Allison Dubois I knew I would narrow in on them. I looked under tables and carts. I went through the frozen food section and back through the world of diapers and bulk wipes. Nothing. I looked up and I looked down aisles. I passed through the cleaning products where the giant Jet Dry bottle still called my name. Seriously! $8.49 for a triple sized bottle?! I want it! I kept looking. Then I literally knew. I knew where those keys were. I quick stepped it to the Lily Pulitzer table and ambled around looking underneath the tables of Tommy Bahama shirts and Polo shorts. Eureka!! There were H's keys! Exactly where I saw them in my mind. YES! I rounded the corner and there were H and T.D. back in the store. I triumphantly held up the keys grinning like a Cheshire cat. We can go home. We can go home and leave this maze of wooden pallets stacked skyward and giant bags of trail mix.

We didn't get a membership. We may in the future. For now that brief visit into adult land a.k.a Costco was enough.