On our last visit to Costco a couple years ago, we had just renewed our membership after a two year lapse. The Wrangler, who unabashedly loves Costco from the $999 flat-screen TVs right down to the 39 cent hot dogs in the cafe, was giddy. "Better get this now, before things get picked over," he kept saying happily, as he filled our cart with things like a lifetime supply of Ziplock sandwich bags and a herd's worth of beef jerky. I grew increasingly annoyed. "Warehouse stores like Costco and Sam's Club represent everything that is wrong with this country," I told the Wrangler indignantly. "What have we as a society done to get to the point where we need six-packs of full-sized boxes of Raisin Bran?" A tray of cinnamon rolls looked yummy, but when I picked up the tray, four other trays came with it. We didn't need five trays of cinnamon rolls. "Who cares," said the Wrangler grandly. "At these prices, just buy the five-pack and throw away four." With that, I imposed our most recent two year hiatus from Costco. We didn't have room in our tiny cottage for the 20 boxes of Ziplock bags, and I ended up donating 19 of the boxes to the Ocean Institute. (The OI goes through a lot of Ziplock bags because it apportions the frozen shrimp it buys in bulk...probably from Costco.)
All this being said, we just renewed our membership a couple weeks ago. The Wrangler, itching to take advantage of Costco's great deals on HD sound systems, explained that if we plan to live on a remote ranch, we have to start adopting the "stocking up" mentality. "On the ranch, a snowstorm could hit and we might not be able to get into town for days or even weeks," he cautioned, as the sun streamed in the window of our urban beach cottage. This was a bit rich coming from someone who constantly employs the "we don't live on a ranch just yet" reasoning to shoot down sensible ideas like getting a pickup truck or two for livestock. "Plus, think of our grocery list for the dinner for 40 at the Friendship House," he wisely argued. "We really do need 20 cans of tomatoes and 15 cans of beans."
And so we embarked on our first trip to Costco since 2007. I will admit that the deals in Costco's electronics section alone knocked me off the soap box, and by the time I cleared the book and DVD aisles, my self-righteousness was but a silly phase of years past. We bumped into friends there, of course. We also happened upon a brochure introducing us to Costco's no-haggle, no-hassle car buying service. The following week, said service saved us a tidy $2000 and a day's worth of headaches when we bought a new car. Costco now has my allegiance. At least $2000 worth.
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