Costco

So I have been told, by my brother's girlfriend and my sisters, that Costco is a magical place full of wonder and delight and cheap rotisserie chickens and bulk packages of Poise pads.  I have never experienced this beacon of wonderment and delight, so they decided to take me here.  On a Saturday.  Before Mother's Day.  With Charlie, my child who freely acknowledges that she should not have access to adult money because it would not end well.  I imagine you can imagine how this went.

First off, the line to get into the fucking place was of Cedar Point length.  For those of you who don't know, Cedar Point is a local-ish (45 minutes away; pre-marriage I would have been like WTF that is a total day trip away and now it's like, oh I drive that far to go to the grocery store that's not Walmart) amusement park that is a big fucking deal when it comes to amusement parks.  Meaning, the lines are redonkulous.  I manage to somehow get a relatively close parking spot, which, I guess, like, yay me but why can't that luck extend to winning the jackpot in the lottery?  We get out and go inside to an entryway that is guarded more closely than Fort Knox.  Like, God forbid someone comes in without someone having that magical Costco card.  Which, Charlie was all like, "This place is a scam, you have to pay to get in and then pay for the stuff you buy?"  And I'm all like, welcome to adulthood in America.  Get some student loan debt and you are solidly middle-class, child.

Anyways, I'm waiting for Elizabeth to come in as she did not have the luck to get a super close spot.  I spot Faith, my brother's girlfriend, waiting for us inside the store where she has already completed most of her shopping.  I surreptitiously take a picture of her and then text it to her with the caption of "I can see you" because I am an asshole like that and should probably not be allowed technology unsupervised.  Anyways, we meet up and she is all relieved that it was just me and not some creepy ass ex texting her (sorry for unknowingly triggering past traumas there!) and we start shopping.

I will start off by saying, Charles had mentioned getting some laundry baskets because our all appear to have started to crumble worse than infrastructure in a red state.  I will say, we did not get laundry baskets.  Mostly because I did not want to spend the time looking for them because holy fucking shit, this place was packed tighter than a Taylor Swift concert.  I did get this two-pack of little trash cans with a flip lid, one for the bathroom because the one we currently have harbors more nastiness than a high school boy's gym bag, one for Charlie's room because she very suddenly became concerned about the lack of a trash can in her room.  We won't talk about the CONDITION of her room, however...

Anyways, we move on to the food section.  It is crazy.  Like, people just everywhere.  Gallon containers of everything from Liquid IV to rotisserie chicken that has been removed from the carcass already.  My already short attention span is going haywire.  Plus, dear sweet mother of God, there is like some kind of old person convention going on wherein they leave their fucking carts in the middle of the goddamned aisles.  I have a sudden urge to ram my cart into people. (Side note: on the way there, Charlie was talking about her one classmate who apparently has asked if anyone ever considers jumping off of the barn loft and also broke all of the bones in the chicken he dissected and asked to bring them home.  Charlie expressed concern (rightfully so) about this kid, but also coined the phrase "What in the Jeffrey Dahmer is that?" so I will forgive her for future sins.)

We start to encounter samples.  I don't know if it was just the day or what, but they were meh.  I will say Charlie tried this smoked salmon that she liked so I promptly got it because if my children ever express a liking for something remotely healthy I'm all over that like Charlie Sheen on a bowl of coke.  I also purchased some ravioli she liked, some Lacroix (despite me trying to talk Charlie into buying the Kirkland brand...I did give her a lesson on the difference between total price and price per unit, but since it was not her money to spend, we got the Lacroix).  I also got Liquid IV, because summer is coming and my husband works in a sweat shop (well not literally but it gets pretty goddamn hot) and will need the rehydration.  Elizabeth bought some energy drinks whilst ignoring my statement about how bad they are for you.  Apparently, I cannot guilt her into better life choices anymore, so yay for growing up?  I guess it's better than her sharing the bowl of coke so I will take the W however I can.

Then we go to checkout.  Being a newbie, I assume that I cannot do so without my sister who has the magical Costco card, so I follow her to self-checkout.  I promptly get scolded by the checkout babysitter.  Apparently I am a "fire hazard".  Well, I have been told by Alexis before that just because humans are flammable does not mean we should light them on fire (solid advice there, I believe.  I'm counting it as a parenting win) so I accept this but I continue to get passive-aggressively scolded by said checkout babysitter until I find an open checkout.  Then I get scolded by the scanner because I did not put said trash cans in the checkout area.  When did technology get in the business of shaming people?

When all is said and done...I was meh.  It was not a place full of wonderment and delight.  It was a place where my imaginary prescription for Xanax would have come in handy.  Would I go back?  Not on a Saturday.  Maybe like a Tuesday early in the morning, but I'm a night owl and the nearest Costco is 45 minutes away so that won't happen. (That time frame only applies when it is a place I can tolerate unmedicated.)  Do I consider the trip a success?  Yeah, I got a semi-healthy food for Charlie and some new trash cans. I didn't kill anyone.  I got a new catchphrase. I got to hang with my family. I did not use the catchphrase "What in the Jeffrey Dahmer is that?"