Saturday night

Saturday night--and the excitement is underwhelming.

Norm has gone to his High School Reunion in California...so the house has been very quiet today. I decided to make my first big post-surgical foray and went to Costco. Being that it was Saturday, I sort of hung out all day and decided to go around 4 p.m. Surely Costco would not be crowded at 4 p.m. on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. After all....these people have lives, right??

Au contraire! The place was packed as if Armageddon was tomorrow! People were waiting for parking spots--stalking customers as they left the store headed to their cars.

And, the funny thing about a crowded Costco: no one uses manners, or rules of the road when they shop there. You know, stay to the right....yield right of way if you are entering the big aisle from the little aisle, and pull your cart over, out of the aisle if you want to look at something. But, no...everyone is in their own little shopping haze, and they leave carts anywhere and everywhere as they peruse the product. For someone like me, it is maddening!

I'm not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination. But, I do like things in their place. I like order. I like sameness. I like symmetry. I like uniformity. (By the way, these qualities are very helpful should you be considering a career as a Flight Attendant.) Okay--I don't like these qualities everywhere, or all the time... but I do like them in the aisles of the Costco.

And people and their carts were everywhere! It was messy and chaotic and sloppy and busy. One nice thing, though...when someone invades your proper traffic space, or are blocking you, they aren't unpleasant if you say "excuse me." Big difference from road traffic. No fingers or horns.

And, checking out is a strategic move--the lines are long, and you have to judge how quickly the cashier works, and how much stuff the people in the line have. I scored big time, I thought. I found a line on the far right that had one woman just finishing up checking out, and had one basket and two guys behind her. And, their basket wasn't that full--they had a big ol' 2 million pack of Charmin and a couple of other items. This was gonna be a breeze!

Nope!

People!! Listen up! If you have a Costco membership, you should already know this: have your card out for the cashier BEFORE she starts to ring your stuff up. Well, these two geniuses couldn't figure who had and where was the membership card. And then, it was two separate orders. And then, the look on the face of each one was "Oh? I have to pay? Let me dig in my pockets and straighten up these wadded up dollar bills, and see how much money I have. Wait, how much was it? Oh, sorry...can you take ummmm...this away and see what the total is. No? Okay, can you take this away? Okay, thanks." Times two.

I had the slowest line of all!

Anyway, always good to come home with the 22 lb. box of chocolate covered pretzels, the gallon jar of already peeled garlic, and 96 count bag of ciabatta rolls. I keed, I keed!

Here are a couple of stuffed animal toys I had to pass up...but, should make any child a great Christmas present, right? By the way, just what are those animals doing in that plastic? Horny little bastards, huh?











Okay, the real sad thing, as I was driving my cart in judgement of everyone else's lack of cart-driving abilities, and making fun of plush stuffed animals fornicating in the aisle, I completely forgot to pick up what I needed most from Costco: cat food.

So, once I was home and realized it, I just went to the grocery store and bought a few cans of cat food. What a pitiful sight I was--checking out with just cat food on a Saturday night. I received many looks of pity from the customers in line.

Sad.