I hate Costco

Now, I'm just a simple girl from the suburbs without a lot of fancy book learning, but I'm pretty sure I once read something by that Dante chap about how Costco was the tenth or eleventh circle of hell in his famous book How All of Your Dead Loved Ones and Pets are Burning Eternally for Sins Otherwise Committed or Merely Thought Of.

It’s fair to say that I hate all big-box stores. It has less to do with my politics and more to do with an extreme case of claustrophobia and a dislike of the general public. After almost hyperventilating and seeing my life flash before my eyes while lost amid the vacuum cleaners and printer paper and surrounded by high, high shelves of one such place, I made a rule - I declared that I wouldn't willingly enter a warehouse type store unless there was an emergency or Christian Bale was spotted shopping there.

But once or twice a year when the moon is full, I find my house in need of bulk paper items and large jars of artichoke hearts and so I fortify myself with virgin’s blood and enter Costco with all of the enthusiasm of the restless dead. Ostensibly, Costco sells everything one might need. Where else can you buy a years supply of underwear and a book on Ass-Kicking Yoga For Fights? I'd just like to know why such a possibly fulfilling shopping experience has to be accompanied by surly children who's parents must have recently hit the crack pipe? Crazy guy who yells HELLO to everyone in a really loud voice? Miserable hippies who ensure that the book area smells like patchouli and armpits? Hipsters with their star tattoos clotted around the wine section comparing their tasting notes and disagreeing haughtily with the Wine Spectator's reviews? And the elderly who vibrate in anticipation at the idea of saving money and wield their age as a weapon as they run you over with their motorized wheelchairs in a hysterical and hostile attempt to get at whatever they need FIRST. I was once in a crowded aisle waiting to pick out some cereal when a small, older man elbowed his way through the throngs and found himself at an impasse once he reached me. Regarding how to best navigate his way quickly towards the mini-wheats he put his wretched, gnome like hand on my arm and began pushing with all of his might until an oily sweat broke out across his forehead from all of the effort and grunting which sounded like this, "Nnnnnnnnnnngh! Nnnnnnnnnngh!" As if he could just shove me aside, like normal people do with cripples. Or babies.

Last week, I had run out of toilet paper and my hoo-ha was chafed from using paper towels. I had ransacked all other bathrooms and was having company over the following night and offering them a Kleenex box stolen from work would not do. So I decided to brave Costco, prepared as always to drop any pretense of being a polite, contributing member of society upon entry. You have to arm yourself. There are those housewives who will stab you in your lady parts with a hypodermic needle if you dare reach for the last copy of Oprah's Guide to the Universe.

So I stood amongst the rabid throng, trying to decide whether to body check a hipster over some scotch or kick a hippie who was taking too long to choose a cheese. I chose neither but instead held my breath, tried desperately not to make eye contact with anyone and dove forward, struggling to tamp down a series of panic attacks. I emerged some time later out of breath and with the wild look of someone who had just rediscovered her will to love and feel. I was done! And had survived rubbing shoulders with lepers, endured getting yelled at by some hostile, bespectacled and beige middle-aged person of indeterminate sexuality over the meat counter and weathered listening to someone of Mensa intelligence loudly recommend Mary Higgins Clark as a master of English literature while taking a short-cut through the book section. I made my way towards the lines which snaked their way around the warehouse for at least four miles, crossing each other and looping back on themselves several times. Then began the internal debate over whether anything was worth the impending wait. But the toilet paper raised a few startling and well thought out points regarding the delicate state of my privates and so I shut up and leaned onto my cart for what I was sure would be a small eternity. Each moment I was in there was resulting in a loss of IQ points and I was anxious to get outside and once again see the sun and gasp at the beauty of the sky and trees and burst into tears.

My line was next to the pharmacy, which allows those who enter this hell-hole and manage to leave with only three items to pay and exit quickly. A middle-aged man with a mole of startling hairiness stood in that line with an overflowing cart. Clearly, he was over the item allowance but didn't seem to care. Either that or the mole, which was near his eye, obscured his vision enough so that he couldn't see the sign indicating the limit. A Costco worker approached him and murmured something about how he needed to get into a line that could process his 314 wares. This didn't go over well with Mole. Instead of moving, Mole started loudly berating the worker. "WHAT? What are you going to do? What DAMNED difference does it make what line I'm in? WHAT? Are you not gonna take my GOD DAMNED MONEY? Is my money NO GOOD?" and so on and so forth. To the Costco employee’s credit, he kept his cool, but Mole persisted. We were all trying to ignore him, but he was getting louder and more insulting. He was far enough away that I couldn't actually reach out and kick him, but I glared at him with all of my might and tried to will him to just shut up and behave with the power of my mind.

This, shockingly, did not work.

Eventually, this human skid mark, sensing the murderous intentions of the crowd, settled down and moved off to a line that would accommodate him. As he passed, I noticed a book pushed in among the many wine bottles that were rattling around his cart. The title was partially obscured by some sausage, but what I could see said, Stretching! and then, also, Namaste! Interesting, considering the man didn't look like he had bent over for at least a decade and hadn’t a hope in hell of ever getting his leg over his head without the aid of dislocation. I went back to my patient wait.

After eight hours of pain, humiliation and oxygen deprivation, I paid for my things and emerged, pausing to bathe in the sunlight. I fell to the ground and kissed the pavement, sobbing. My hair had turned gray, my skin ashen. I couldn't remember my name, where I lived or my birth date, but I knew that I'd regain those memories as the horror receded.

I drove home, windows open, groceries, toilet paper and sundries tumbling around on the back seat. I was filled with joy. I had survived. The garage door opened to greet me, and there, sitting on one of the many shelves which line the garage walls sat an economy sized flat of toilet paper, unhidden, bright and shining. How I had missed it will forever remain one of the mysteries of my life.

I sat there clutching my steering wheel twitching in a way that communicated quiet rage. And then I decided to go into the house and have a drink. You know, to reduce the level of danger that I was, at that moment, posing to society. Having just lived through such a harrowing experience that was, at the end of it all, completely unnecessary was just too much to bear. On the other hand, with the amount of toilet paper I now have floating around, I won't have to go back for at least five years.

Namaste, indeed.

One perfect day.

We were on vacation with friends and had woken up to that bright morning light that means you are next to the water. I sat up on the fold-out couch that had been our bed that night, rubbed my sore back and looked out through the open window at the impossibly blue sea and said, "Oh!" as though any word could sum up the beauty of what was before me. You pulled me back to you, covering both of us with the thin duvet that smelled of mothballs and lavender and we both fell back into that nirvana-like sleep that blesses us once or twice a year.

Later, after everyone had stumbled out of bed, eaten and made plans for the day - when we would eat next and what we would drink? - you looked at me and said, "Walk?" We had brought the dog and, at the mention of her favorite word, she started dancing around our ankles and you laughed, a perfect web of lines scattering out from the sides of your eyes as your mouth broke out into a grin. You looked up at me as you rubbed her neck and something inside of me felt like it was falling.

We walked north for miles. The beach stretched interminably before us and, as the dog inspected the dunes and sniffed at every vertical object, we moved easily between talking and silence. We stopped now and then to comment on the beach houses that rose to our right and you would say things like, "Let's buy this one. Right now. I have 14 cents on me. You?" And then you would grab my hand and we would walk on, smiling in the knowledge that even if, someday, we could afford something that grand, what we had right here between us was enough.

Hours later, the beach ended in a peninsula, and we stood there for a long while, surrounded on three sides by sea. I dug my toes into the sand and threw my head back into the afternoon breeze. My skin was warm and coated with the salt air. My hair had become a mess of tangles from both wind and moisture. Before we left the house, I had pulled it back and a few moments into the walk you had pulled out the elastic and said, "You know I love how your hair gets when we're at the beach." And now your hand crept up my back and into the nape of my neck where you interlaced your fingers with my curls. We stood there for a long time. I didn't want to turn back for home.

But we did. And about two hours later we saw our friends camped out under an umbrella. Our hands parted as we walked up to them and I flopped down at the edge of their blanket, popping a chip into my mouth. The dog sought shelter under the porch of a nearby home and proceeded to dig herself a hole in the cool sand and fall into an exhausted sleep.

"Where have you two been?" our friends asked. "You were gone for hours."

You looked at me and smiled and said, "We walked until the beach ended." I smiled back. I felt, somehow, as though I knew you more completely than I had before. I don't know why. I still don't.

But I sometimes, when life is difficult and I need a reminder of things that are good, I look back and remember that moment and think to myself, whatever happens in my life, I have had one perfect day. And in truth, there have been many, but that is the one I think of the most.

Our house is one full of genius. And horomones, apparently.

Marc: I just got the new Taylor Swift album downloaded!
Me: Wait, what?
Marc: You know, the new Taylor Swift album? I got it because she is REALLY talented.
Me: Also because she is hot and young?
Marc: Well, DUH.

and then later...

Marc: Our new Netflix movie came!
Me: Oooooooooooo - the one with Christian Bale in it?
Marc: Yes!
Me: Do you think he takes his shirt off? Because he'd better.

I resolve NOT to...

Happy New Year everyone! I was trying to do a wrap up post about the rest of my holiday and then realized that it could be summed up in four words: I ate too much. So if you hear a "Rrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeaaaahhhh" sound coming from Mountain View, those are the seams of my pants straining in their valiant effort not to give way. Good times.

I was talking to a client this Monday about New Years and she asked if I had made any resolutions. Normally, I don't. I just sort of look at the year and think about what I would like to accomplish and then formulate a plan as to how to make that happen. And then I take a nap, because all of that thinking can really wear a girl out. For 2009, my primary goal was to Remain Upright. So, yay! I can check that one off of the list! But this year? For some reason, and this is the first time I can say this in a long time, I'm filled with an extraordinary amount of hope and, dare I say, joy. Gasp! I KNOW! It's weird. Everyone just CALM DOWN.

So that being said, I was talking to her about resolutions and said, "You know, I saw this article about making a list of things you resolve NOT to do, and I think I'm going to make one myself!" I've been thinking about it a lot over the past few days, and here is what I have come up with thus far...

My 2010 Not To Do List:
1) I will not check my iPhone when I am with someone else. First - RUDE. Second - Why? And third - it's not good for my relationships or my mental health.
2) I will stop telling myself why something won't work out or be a success and start telling myself why it WILL.
3) I will stop spending mindlessly. I want to stop wondering where all of the money in my (and in Marc's) pocket went. I want to focus on my own personal economy.
4) I will stop worrying about where I'll be in the next 5-10 years and think instead about what I want to do NOW. Because if I'm doing what I want to DO, then I'll be where I'm supposed to BE, right?
5) I will stop thinking about how hard life has been and instead focus on all that I have. Which is a lot. I will cultivate a spirit of contentedness.

I know. I've been smoking some weird stuff up in here, but all of you who are yelling, "GAH! SHE HAS GOTTEN ALL POSITIVE! UNSUBSCRIBE!" can just suck it.

In the meantime, rest assured that some of my original spirit is still intact since I'm HUGELY irritated by all of the people flooding the gym and my Zumba! classes. I can't wait until February when everyone succumbs to their old habits so that I don't have to watch where I'm flailing while I dance. I have bony elbows people. You've been warned.