Last semester, there was a flea market on campus, and numerous vendors from nearby were hawking wares.

I suppose I could have avoided everything that followed by simply ignoring the event, but I guess it’s a bit too late to worry about that.

Anyway, I went to the gathering, and saw a booth for Costco, where they were offering Gold Star memberships. Normally, I wouldn’t even consider buying this, due to the fact that the nearest Costco is two miles away, and most everything I need can be bought on campus; but they also gave away gift baskets with each membership they sold.

Oh hey, free stuff. I bought the membership, which set me back a cool 55 bucks. There goes the nice things for the rest of the year.

Due to incidents with my dormmates the rest of the semester, I was unable to actually activate the card, until this month, 6 months later. I finally found some free time for visiting the place. Most people I meet around college seem surprised that anyone could survive traveling two miles without a car (I suppose it’s an L.A. thing), when truth be told it isn’t that hard to do on a bike. I went down to the place, locked up my bike on a rail next to the entrance, then suddenly lost control of my jaw. All I could think of was holy shit, the place was huge. HUGE. Now, I’ve been to Costco before as a kid, and had no problem with it, it just seemed like any other store. Now that I was living on my own and paying for my own groceries, I was thoroughly intimidated. The place dominated the sky and the horizon, like some sort of sideways skyscraper; with hordes of people flowing in and out of the place with those sideless trolleys you see at Home Depot. It’s as if the building’s very presence was sneering at me, saying in it’s God/Darth Vader voice “What are you doing here? There is nothing here you could possibly ever afford. You have no business here; BEGONE“.

After a moment, I scraped up my courage and went to the front, asked where the Costco cards were given, and was directed to a desk to the side. After undergoing a process reminiscent of the time I applied for a driver’s license, I was finally given a membership card. Realising I had nothing to carry anything in, I managed to ford my way through the river of people to the exit, where I picked up a cart large enough to qualify as a motor vehicle, and made my way back to the entrance. As I managed to get further in to the store, I was awestruck again. I know that I’ve been into stores before, especially Costco, but now that I was an older, thinking, individual, I couldn’t help but do just that.
The entire store seemed to be shaped like a loop on the inside, starting at the entrance, and ending at the checkout. You start with the expensive gizmos, the TVs, the computers, computer accessories, the printers, the copiers, the ink cartridges, cell phones, the bluetooth devices, the gaming accessories, the DVD players; and then move on to find on your left the home fitness accessories, the solariums, the kitchen accessories, the silverware, the plates, the ovens, the washing machines and driers, the desks, the beds, the couches and the chairs, the flooring sheets and fans, the hardware tools and power saws; and on your right, the Danielle Steele and Clive Cussler novels, the miscellaneous clothes, the Calvin Kleins, the Andy Warhols, the Abercrombie and Fitchs’, the Levis’, the Strauss’, the camping equipment, the pool inflatables, the playground equipment, and the pimple products; moving on past that takes you to the food section of the store, gracing you with wine and beer of every kind, frozen and chilled meats, premade pastries, numerous fruits, rice, cheese, yogurt, milk, butter, quiche, pumpkin pies, apple pies, other pies, bread, bananas, bagels, popsicles, ice cream, frozen tv dinners, peas, kumquats, white beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, jumping beans, Coke, Pepsi,, Minute Maid, Brisk; and right before you reach the checkout there’s gardening and cleaning supplies, with rakes, shovels, bags, bleach, Snuggle, Ajax, Borax, Joy, Windex, Dawn, Mr. Clean, Arm and Hammer, sponges, mops, beauty products for your hair, skin, insides, and outsides, meds for any conceivable slight to the image of perfection that all must have, snake oil, snacks, chips, candy, cookies, and dried berries.
I look at all of this, and wonder who could possibly want all of this, who could possibly have any need for this; why would the world need this much? So much selection, so little need….

It’s so easy to get caught up in just shopping there. Anything you could think of, even the stuff you can’t was available. And it’s just there, for you to reach out to and grab. You see all sorts of things that look so cool, so nice, so tasty – everything you could ever want as a kid, is right there within reach. And people around me are taking advantage of that opportunity. Left and right, men and women shovel what must be hundreds of dollars worth of items they might never use or might find cheaper elsewhere into carts, filling them to the brim. Some cart I see chock full and just sitting there, with noone to attend to them. How addicted to stuff do you have to be to do that? Just filling up carts, leaving them, and grabbing more carts to fill – is that their purpose here? Makes you wonder if people just live out their entire lives, just shopping here until they kick the bucket. Probably explains how the store can afford to give out all those free food samples, as well as stock half their products.

After some aimless wandering, I find what seems like something worth buying: a 28-pack of Mexican Coca-Cola. I take my cart to the front, and get in line at the checkout. Then I suddenly remember that I came here in a bike. 2 miles from campus. And that I have nothing to carry this in, aside from my bare hands.

Crap

I panic, ditch the cart in the middle of the checkout, and head back to campus. It then occurred to me later that They sell reusable bags for shopping there.
Well now I just feel stupid.
Next week, another window of opportunity becomes available, and I head out again. I go back, grab the Mexi-Coke and a soylent green sample from the free food stands, and begin searching for the bag.

I discovered two things here. One, there are absolutely NO maps or guides around the store to tell you which section is which. They give generalisations, and that’s after you find the place; no overall map. Two, almost everyone who works there are actually volunteers. Every time I though I found an employee, it was either a volunteer, or a representative from another company selling their product. The only place I could see actual, bona-fide employees was behind the meat counter and the check-out. These volunteers, representatives, and even the employees, do not know where things are in this store. They work here, and they’re just as clueless as I am.Often times, the advice I get is “Yeah, you’re gonna want to look for that at the complete opposite side of the store here”. My pessimistic side says they’re have no clue what I want and just want me to buy whatever I can find along the way.

Now, you’d THINK that at a store this huge that sells so much product, they’d give you bags somewhere. No. No, no, no; absolutely incorrect; shame on you for being optimistic or practical. I go to the front of the store, pay this time for my stuff, and it turns out they have no bags in the store.

This is where I panic for a second time. I take the cart outside the store, and continue past my bike out into the parking lot. Yes, I am stealing the thing; yes, I just left my bike parked next to a very busy store in the middle of Los Angeles. I must have figured I’d come back for it the next day, I don’t know.

On my way out the lot, I’m searching the plaza for any other stores that have bags, and I receive a blessing from above: a Petco (Petco, Costco – I’ll figure out the connection another day). I park the cart next to the entrance, where I find another Costco cart; someone else must have had the same idea as me. I don’t need to worry about my stuff being stolen, it’s too heavy. Once inside, I ask the cashier if he can spare any bags; I’m immediately shown a plastic one the size of a granny’s purse. I ask if he has anything bigger and more durable, and I’m shown a larger bag with the words “I’m with this mutt” and an arrow on the side.

Who cares, I buy the thing, walk out and stuff my coke in there

After finding out it BARELY fits, with quite a bit poking out from the bag, I attempt to walk back to the bike, only to find the thing is still frickin’ heavy. I place it back in the cart, and haul it back towards my bike, where I find out no, I cannot hang the bag on the side as I ride; no, I cannot hold it and the handlebar at the same time, so put the thing down; no, I cannot hang it off my person like a backpack, the handles cut like a knife. In the end, I hang the bag off the handlebars, and walk it and the bike, two miles back to my college in the L.A. heat.

30 minutes later, when I’m halfway there, I decide to pop out a coke before the heat kills me. After cutting my hands on the lid, I use my keys to wedge open the cap enough to drink the coke inside… which, wile different enough in flavor, seems to be worth entirely too much work to get. Mass corporate marketing campaigns, a grown and cultivated addiction in the minds, hearts, and bellies of people everywhere, establishing drinking rights to block rival brands from certain locations, and they can’t even make a damn openable lid. Bloody coke.

My main reason for knowing about drinking rights is because Pepsi has some on my school, and I haven’t had a coke for the past 6-7 months. Yes, I suffer.

My whole way back though, I was still wondering about the store. How much can a person need? How many people did it take to grow the food, mine the metals, bake the goods, manufacture the hardware, program it, and get all these resources to that store so I can buy them at somewhat cheap prices? How much of the pie do they get? Do they get to enjoy the final product as well? More importantly, how often do other countries get to enjoy this? Do they get the same selection and range of products as we do, or do they get less? Can they afford what we can afford? Hell, most of these questions apply to anywhere in our own country, not to mention others. Do most customers think about this as they shop, or do they take it for granted, like everything else? How often do they realise that what they hold in their hands took half the world to supply and manufacture? I can’t help but think about that whenever I enter stores nowadays. Maybe it’s a maturity moment, maybe it’s just me, and maybe I just overthink these things entirely.

One thing that bugs me is when people thank god for all these things. Thank god for this food, thank god for these cities, building, and tools; thank god for this life. Noone ever says “Thank the farmers and the farmhands”, “Thank the people for organising to make somewhat safe cities and countries where I might live in peace”, “Thank the engineers and architects for building my tools and houses”, or even “Thank you boss for this paycheck, there are worse working environments and wages than $7 an hour at Domino’s Pizza”. It bugs, me, and not just because I’m agnostic. Noone thanks the people around them for giving them what they give, even if it seems insignificant and easily forgettable to society what they provide for it. People also seem fond of just spending willy nilly with no care for their wallets; and oftentimes that money isn’t even theirs.

I dunno, the world just seems a different place when you’re actively participating in it, working in college, looking for a job, and a place to stay. Makes you think more.

I’m definitely made up my mind on one thing. No impulse buys. Get exactly what you need, nothing more. I’m doing pretty good with that I think. Next step: learn to turn down free stuff, especially when it comes with a price tag.

This might take a while.