Big Love.

I was feeling pretty good on Friday and fully recovered from our two-day Disneyland adventure - I managed to scrape that last piece of gum off my shoes and I'd finally stopped answering every question with, "Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me!" So I decided to splurge and take the day for myself. I gassed up the van, hit the ATM and headed for the land of free food and cheap booze, the place where time flies and money flies faster.

Vegas? Ha!

I'm talkin' bout Costco, baby.

I've never been a big warehouse shopper, but since Rigel's company pays for our membership I thought it was about time I started taking advantage of it. When the kids were small I had a hard time picturing us as a Costco family. It wasn't often I thought to myself, "I sure could use a wheel of cheese the size of a manhole cover" or "Let me go pick up a twenty-gallon drum of milk." That was for the Osmonds, or those women you see on TV that gave birth to twelve babies at one time. I was fine buying my eggs, vegetables and underwear at the grocery store just like I've always done.

But as the kids grow up and their appetites grow with them, I'm beginning to see the logic in buying in bulk. I used to laugh at the gargantuan boxes of Goldfish at other people's houses until suddenly I realized that a regular sized bag could be inhaled by my girls and their friends during the first two minutes of a playdate. And so what if I needed to bust a hole in my cabinet to store it, this fifteen-liter bottle of apple juice is going to save me money, damnit!

Everything is big at Costco. The carts are the size of Hondas and require some brawn to maneuver them down the wide aisles. I feel dwarfed in that place, like a little girl pushing her toy stroller around. Normally I would feel embarrassed having to ask a stranger to lift a tin of cookies onto my cart, but not when it weighs more than my 10-year old. I've learned to avoid the bigger, heftier shoppers who maneuver their carts around like tanks and will roll over you to get to that last keg of Diet Coke. Which by the way, is the perfect beverage to enjoy with the five-pound slice of pizza you can buy on your way out.

I've been noticing that shopping at Costco carries a certain cachet now among my peers. Before, in our younger, single days we would attempt to impress by whispering "Fred Segal!" or "Spago!" when asked about our latest outfit or party offering. Now, ask about someone's new ski parka or their fabulous hors d'oeuvres platter and they're likely to say "Costco!" as evidence of their expertise at scoping out a good deal or their ability to lift heavy things. Frugal is in, and the race is no longer to see who has the best toys, but who's toy was cheapest and came in a 2-pak.

One of the big attractions at Costco are the free food samples. Years ago I remember a friend proudly telling me that she had a complete meal there one day while shopping for a computer - starting off with some asparagus bites and ending two hours later with a cup of their fresh-roasted coffee. I told her this was gross and disgusting, but knew then in my heart that I had found the shopping experience I had only dreamed possible. Shop for cds and cleaning supplies and then walk a few feet for a free slice of quiche? I love America.

You can always tell alot by a person by the free samples they take - the super-thin mom who ignores the chicken nugget but waits patiently for her tiny cup of smoothie, and the overweight guy with the huge arms who swoops up five pizza bites at a time. (And there I was, shoving five teenagers aside to get one of those little wieners wrapped in a crescent roll.) It's certainly not the place for the connoisseur or food snob, which I tried to point out to a woman who was holding up the line by asking repeatedly whether a cheese she was sampling was imported or not. I told her she might not get the answer she was looking for from someone wearing overalls and a hair net. And then I politely asked her to step aside since she was standing between me and my appetizer course.

I'm thinking that the whole era of the warehouse superstore has got to end sometime, and the trend will reverse. The micro-amount will replace the stockpiles of big food. Instead of showing off my five-pound bag of French Roast, I'll be bragging about how I stood in line for an hour just to buy a single coffee bean. Until that time, though, I'll continue to make my monthly trek to Costco to fulfill my hoarding instincts and to stuff myself on those free samples. And call me crazy, but I'll sleep better tonight knowing that, barring a nasty stomach virus or a bad pot of chili, I just bought enough toilet paper to last us the next three years.

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tags: costco | hoarding | free food | too much toilet paper

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