Costco on the Brain
I’ve known about Costco for many years. It has existed since I came into adulthood after college, but I probably first thought about it in the late 1990’s when my old motorcycling friend Bob Kirby went on and on about selling his Cattle Drive Chili (Bob owned Castlebury Stews out of Augusta, Georgia) through Costco. Bob was a Harvard MBA who had made the food business his passion. He would talk for hours about retailing through the wondrous logistical system at Walmart and the private labeling opportunities afforded by Costco. I found the topic very amusing since I have never been much of a grocery store guy. For some reason, buying and preparing food has never been a big priority to me. It’s not as though I had a mother who doted on me and kept me from ever having to thing about hunting and gathering my provisions. She was the world’s ranking home economist (literally…as the Head of the Home Economics Division of the Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for 15 years), but she was much too busy to spend a lot of time on domestic issues like shopping and food preparation. That was one of the great ironies of my young and somewhat untethered life growing up around the world. So, I might wander into the local Mercato in Rome to buy some Rosetta rolls or salami, but proper grocery shopping from a list was not an activity that I can recall ever doing.
It’s funny because my favorite aunt and uncle (Aggie & Art), who lived their whole lives in Ithaca, New York in the middle of the finger lakes, were grocers. They owned Gregg’s Red & White, which was and IGA (Independent Grocers Association) located at the bottom of East Hill on Cayuga Street in Ithaca. I grew up idealizing Aggie & Art since they were the stable rocks as compared to the wandering and free-floating feathers that characterized my mother, sisters and I. As much as our lifestyle bread adaptability into me, it also created some longing for stability and nothing represented stability more than Aggie & Art. Their modest home on West Hill was a beacon of comfort to me. They mowed the lawn, played golf on the Newman Municipal Golf Course (always walking with a cart) and bowled in a local bowling league during the colder months. Their grocery business was their life and it provided all the resources they needed for this rock-solid lifestyle they enjoyed and I admired. And still, it never occurred to me to think of grocery shopping as a part of that picture. I was simply more of a scrounger than a systematic shopper.
All through my adult life, I suppose by the circumstance of my busy career and choice of partner, I can count on one hand the number of times I had to go to the grocery store to provision my life with foodstuffs. I was always thinking that I was too busy for that, which gets further compounded in terms of penurious shopping with the thought that I had more productive ways of spending my time than clipping coupons or shopping for bargains. I recall talking to my beloved stepfather Irving, a man who had led a great and eventful life around the world, and he would tell me that on long drives across Florida he would stop and go into a local and unknown supermarket and walk about it to compare prices. I remember thinking of how odd that was. Odd that he was so cost-conscious and odd that it would pertain to groceries, which always struck me as fairly inconsequential cost items in life. Of course, that is one of my biggest life problems, not being penny-wise enough. I have gone so far as to say that if I ever write a true autobiography it needed to be called “The Hole in My Pocket” for all the money I have wasted over the years.
When I befriended Mike in my neighborhood a few years ago, I think the second word I heard him utter was Costco. To say that he is Costco-obsessed would not be a big stretch. He goes to one Costco or another three times a week on average and makes a habit of visiting as many different Costcos as he can, since he says they all carry slightly different things. I recall a cruise he took to Alaska and him telling me that he went to all three Costcos in Anchorage. His Costcoitis (funny double-entendre) led me to take up an Executive Membership which I have used perhaps ten times in the last 18 months. It paid for itself just in my air conditioning condenser purchase from there. I have also found that Costco has certain offerings that I like (for instance their baguettes), so I am drawn to go there every once in a while. Strangely enough, a deterrent to my going too often to Costco is Kim. She is far less enamored with the place, mostly because she finds the bulk buying more of a waste than a help to our household logistics.
Everything about Costco should make me want to stay away. First of all there is the massive and always busy parking lot. Only once did I go and not find an overcrowded parking lot and that was because it was 30 minutes before opening…and yet there were still people starting to line up to gain entry. Then there is the product inundation with all the higher-cost specials on offer first thing in the door. The shopping experience overall is very aggressive with lots of people with oversized shopping carts running this way and that, mostly knowing exactly where everything is (compared to my general lack of awareness). To Kim’s point, everything is sold more or less in XL size though that is more manageable than it initially seems. Then there are the long lines at check out and the even longer lines at the lunch counter beyond the registers (a must-stop for anyone looking for a bargain meal).
But here is the strange news. I have started carrying my Costco card in my regular card stack since I actually like going to Costco. Maybe its because of Mike and maybe its because I know Kim doesn’t want to go, but I find myself looking for reasons to go. Its sort of destination to me and while I probably only go every other week at most, I do look forward to it. I put myself in Costco mode wherein I don’t mind the parking lot or the crowds. Its like going to the airport for me. I’ve learned to put up with it by going into a peaceful state of mind about it all.
Today I seem to have turned a corner. Its another of the Gray May days with too much moisture in the air to want to go out into the garden, so I got it into my head that I would go to Costco. Even stranger, Kim wants me to pick up some things for her there and that is truly a first. She has actually given me a grocery list so I won’t forget anything. Some of the things are unique items like a 10’x10’ pop-up canopy for her to use at the Sellers Faire. But there are also things on that list like ground beef and ground turkey for Buddy that are foodstuffs. For one of the first times in my life, I will be going to a grocery store with a grocery list and am going just to shop as well. I will see what I can see and am sure to discover things I never realized I needed or wanted. My biggest challenge will be to not overbuy and cause Kim to shake her head over the storage problems involved with that. I called Mike, but it seems he is in between Costco visits, which probably for the best. I think I need a few more practice runs to acquaint myself with the Costco drill before I embarrass myself with Mike.