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.