Entry tags:
consumerism
A month and a half ago ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shalmestere and I attended a wedding in Massachusetts, which meant packing for a weekend away from home. So I grabbed some undies, socks, toilet kit, dress shoes, suit and tie and threw them into an overnight bag.
When we got to the hotel that night, it occurred to me I really ought to try on the suit, which I hadn't worn in years, and found that the pants didn't close around my belly. Really didn't close, even sucking in my gut. Fortunately, there were spare buttons sewn to the inside of the suit, so I decided to add a button two inches over from the one that normally anchors the front closure; with a jacket over it nobody would know it wasn't closed properly. But we didn't have sewing supplies with us, and the hotel front desk didn't either. So I whipped out my phone and looked in the immediate neighborhood for things that looked like drugstores (or even a sewing store, although I didn't think that was likely), and saw a Costco. I had never been to a Costco, and was under the mistaken impression that it was a chain drugstore, like Rite-Aid, CVS, or Walgreen's.
Anyway, we drove to Costco in the morning and walked in. Immediately I felt as though all my senses were under assault. The store was huge, the piles of stuff were huge, the individual boxes of stuff were huge, the crowds were huge, and there was almost no organization by category; the only way to find anything specific was to walk down every single aisle. We walked out an hour later with about $200 worth of things we hadn't known we needed, but no sewing kit. So we found an actual chain drugstore, bought a $2 sewing kit, returned to the hotel room, I moved the button, we went to the wedding, it's all good.
Except that now we had Costco membership cards. Once you've paid for a membership in something like that, you feel a certain obligation to use it. So yesterday, in the course of an expedition "out the island" (returning a kitchen appliance that was the wrong size, dropping some surplus clothes at a thrift store) we stopped at another Costco. And again I felt as though all my senses were under assault. We walked out with $500 worth of stuff, including three or four items I had known we needed and a whole lot of meat (which wouldn't have occurred to me, but it madeshalmestere happy). We were unable to find a number of seemingly-basic things we wanted: Costco has enormous quantities of everything, but surprisingly little selection. And almost none of the meat fit into our already-stuffed kitchen freezer, so it's in the "cold zone" of the fridge; we'll have to use it up fairly quickly, so we have a protein-heavy week or two ahead of us. And we still need to go to a normal grocery store today.
We've been talking idly for a few years about putting a small trunk freezer in the basement. There's an obvious place to put one, but it requires (a) moving other stuff out of the way, and (b) having an electrician install a power plug there (which shouldn't be a big deal -- it's right under the circuit breaker box -- but there's no power outlet there now). So that project is under discussion again. Costco, of course, has trunk freezers, but only one model, and I really didn't want to buy one without doing steps (a) and (b) first, not to mention the usual Consumer Reports research before buying a home appliance.
Anyway, I think I'll take a pass on the next Costco expedition and leave it toshalmestere.
shalmestere and I attended a wedding in Massachusetts, which meant packing for a weekend away from home. So I grabbed some undies, socks, toilet kit, dress shoes, suit and tie and threw them into an overnight bag.When we got to the hotel that night, it occurred to me I really ought to try on the suit, which I hadn't worn in years, and found that the pants didn't close around my belly. Really didn't close, even sucking in my gut. Fortunately, there were spare buttons sewn to the inside of the suit, so I decided to add a button two inches over from the one that normally anchors the front closure; with a jacket over it nobody would know it wasn't closed properly. But we didn't have sewing supplies with us, and the hotel front desk didn't either. So I whipped out my phone and looked in the immediate neighborhood for things that looked like drugstores (or even a sewing store, although I didn't think that was likely), and saw a Costco. I had never been to a Costco, and was under the mistaken impression that it was a chain drugstore, like Rite-Aid, CVS, or Walgreen's.
Anyway, we drove to Costco in the morning and walked in. Immediately I felt as though all my senses were under assault. The store was huge, the piles of stuff were huge, the individual boxes of stuff were huge, the crowds were huge, and there was almost no organization by category; the only way to find anything specific was to walk down every single aisle. We walked out an hour later with about $200 worth of things we hadn't known we needed, but no sewing kit. So we found an actual chain drugstore, bought a $2 sewing kit, returned to the hotel room, I moved the button, we went to the wedding, it's all good.
Except that now we had Costco membership cards. Once you've paid for a membership in something like that, you feel a certain obligation to use it. So yesterday, in the course of an expedition "out the island" (returning a kitchen appliance that was the wrong size, dropping some surplus clothes at a thrift store) we stopped at another Costco. And again I felt as though all my senses were under assault. We walked out with $500 worth of stuff, including three or four items I had known we needed and a whole lot of meat (which wouldn't have occurred to me, but it made
shalmestere happy). We were unable to find a number of seemingly-basic things we wanted: Costco has enormous quantities of everything, but surprisingly little selection. And almost none of the meat fit into our already-stuffed kitchen freezer, so it's in the "cold zone" of the fridge; we'll have to use it up fairly quickly, so we have a protein-heavy week or two ahead of us. And we still need to go to a normal grocery store today.We've been talking idly for a few years about putting a small trunk freezer in the basement. There's an obvious place to put one, but it requires (a) moving other stuff out of the way, and (b) having an electrician install a power plug there (which shouldn't be a big deal -- it's right under the circuit breaker box -- but there's no power outlet there now). So that project is under discussion again. Costco, of course, has trunk freezers, but only one model, and I really didn't want to buy one without doing steps (a) and (b) first, not to mention the usual Consumer Reports research before buying a home appliance.
Anyway, I think I'll take a pass on the next Costco expedition and leave it to
shalmestere.
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A long time ago I had a membership at Sam's Club, which is similar: huge quantities, little selection, but at the time a cost-effective way to fill one's pantry if you weren't too picky. Eventually the price went up or I lost my university discount or something and I didn't renew because that changed the cost-effectiveness math for me.
On the other hand, buying meat in 10-pound packages and rice in 25-pound bags and stuff like that was just fine when I last cooked a feast and did a lot of the shopping at Costco courtesy of the autocrat's membership. I don't think they have much in the way of kosher meat, so it's probably still not attractive for us, but I haven't done the research.
I had no idea they would refund a pro-rated portion of a membership (per the previous comment). That's handy!
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Yes, it struck me as a very promising place to shop for a feast or a large party.
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Regards,
C.
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Part of Costco's philosophy is to narrow down the choices by picking for you. Do you need to decide between 12 types of olive oil, or is having one good one sufficient? You're going to buy a gallon of it, though....
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