Costco gives me the creeps. There, I've said it.
I've been to Costco maybe three or four times in my life. Usually I'm on a ride-along with friends doing their shopping; once a friend took me to get guacamole for my 30th birthday party.
I remember walking into the cavernous Red Hook Costco for the first time, dodging the pressurized obstacle course of shopping carts, adults, and children. I stood in awe, gaping at the sheer size of the place. It was like I'd landed on Mars. It wasn't just that the place was huge; it was the people, all buzzing about, buying, buying, making tracks and navigating through inroads, cart-laden and darting between gaps and spaces. The sound of clanging metal rang everywhere. It was a human anthill, and if I stood too long in any one place, I was quickly jostled aside.
I quickly sensed that the people who come here often somehow "knew how this worked"; meaning, they threw up mental defenses the moment they took hold of their physical ones, which took the form of a big - very big - shopping cart.
I was a newbie at this, but the friend I'd come with was a seasoned pro. She had her cart and was long gone, aggressively headed through the throng. Once she'd charted her course, she saw I was still standing like an idiot in the doorway and had to call me to catch up.
There are some unpleasant aspects of human nature I've witnessed that start in the Costco parking lot and end up inside the store. I realized: the shopping cart in Costco is what an SUV is to cars. It's big, wide, bulky, and hard to handle. It can't corner worth beans, but it will certainly run you down.
Now here's a fact. When people drive their SUVs, especially the ones that have the shining toothy grills, they're saying, watch out everybody, stand back. I'm coming through!
So what happens when they get behind the handle of that big ol' box of a shopping cart? I think the same thing takes over. All that's missing is the power windows. I see it on their faces: Get out of my way, I'm coming through!
After the grabfest of transferring everything from shelves to cart is through and you've stood patiently in line for a half hour to save your 4 dollars on the $50 bucks worth of food you're going to throw out anyway, you head back to the parking lot where you climb back into the power-steering cart you came in. You weave your way impatiently through throngs of pedestrians (get out of my way, I'm coming through!) and head onto the road.
My theory is: those who drive aggressively in their SUVs are the same way behind the handle of their shopping carts...especially at Costco, the SUV of the grocery world. What is it about being American that makes us think that the only way to happiness is to buy and eat so freaking much? Why do we make our cars so big? And our grocery stores? And our big TVs and mega-churches? Is it just because we can? If you think about it, with our insatiable appetite for big, should it come as a shock that we've gotten ourselves into such a geopolitical mess? After all, our country elected a president whose mantra happens to be: "Get out of my way, I'm coming through!"
Funny enough, George Bush is like McDonald's. It's not his fault everything's all screwed up; he provided a product, and we bought it. Large quantities of it. He never tried to hide his cowboy style or his contempt for those who would disagree with him. But as a nation of people who tell each other "get out of my way, I'm coming through", we elected this man because when it came to upholding that lifestyle, he could deliver. Oddly enough, we're nowhere near as kind to those who tell us there's something wrong with this approach.
Hopefully we've seen the light. SUVs are being replaced by Priuses. Incandescents are being replaced with fluorescents. We're using fabric grocery bags a little more often, and we're more likely to buy milk that won't cause men to grow boobs. I actually look forward to the day -albeit mythical- that Costco and places like it start shutting down because we finally start to realize we don't need that much of anything.
With all that said, who's the presidential candidate going to be that can say something besides "get out of my way, I'm coming through" ? And when someone does have the guts to say something a little more thoughtful, will we as a nation be mature enough to listen?
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