K... I'm off to COSTCO. If I'm not back in 4 hours, send out the rescue dogs.
fuck you costcoBAM!!! 60 DOLLAH!!!So... got to COSTCO at 9:30 to be early vs the website which said 10:00am. The insanity started in the parking lot; after circling the lot like a shark for a parking space, I successfully stalked someone to their parking spot in the far back corner of Beyond & waited for them to load their car & leave. On the way back, I go to grab a cart just sitting in the lot; some dingle waiting for a spot honks and yells at me "THAT'S MY CART!!!" Get up to the cart-carport, and... it's empty except for a couple of the big flat orange dumptruck carts.
Shrugging, I take one and wend my way through the parking lot into the store. As soon as I get inside, there's a line to get anywhere except the food court which is shut down and a ghost town except for a couple exhausted shoppers and their carts. Trying to get around, I follow a couple of the quicker-moving lines, which I soon realize either lead to the Pharmacy or recurse back to THE BIG SLOW LINE headed to the back of the store. I cringe as the light dawns on me; OF COURSE that's the line I have to get in; everybody here is doing the same thing as I am.
Eventually I get stuck with that big dumptruck cart about 3/4 of the way back; so I abandon it to travel light. I work my way like a linebacker on a kickoff return; getting elbowed here, whacked in the shin by a cart there, foot rolled over by a cart somewhere else... but I make it to the back in a few minutes only to find the paper products dept is wiped out. There are about a dozen of the bulk paks of heffalump bog roll, and that's it. There's an associate directing traffic; "Is this where the bath tissue is supposed to be...?" I ask; he says "Oh, it was there when we opened; lasted about half an hour." I look at my watch: "It's 5 til 10, which is when you're supposed to be open." "Oh, we open at 9:00; have been for years." I give him a look like a tree full of owls.
"We'll have more tomorrow; get here at 8-8:30 and you should have no trouble."
I weigh my options against the odds of going toe-to-toe with a Saturday morning rush of all the same duckwits I was already battling, PLUS those who couldn't get away from work all week and promptly decided to just make a stop at every grocery store on the way and take what I could get. So I turn my big dumptruck cart with half a dozen items on it around in the middle of traffic; doing so, I cut one lady off by accident. She's all apologetic... "Oh, were you in line...?" "In line, no... in line for what?" "To the registers. This is the line to check out."
Well, I guess I AM in line now..." I shout to her, pulling ahead to keep up. It takes me 30 minutes to get to the registers and check out; for a change I'm actually in the fast lane.
So I begin my pilgrimage home... after 4 other stores, the 5th I stopped in was a Longo's... they're one of those upscale grocery marts, with a fire-baked pizza boutique in-store and 3 different "assault cookery" type specialty kitchen islands producing various ethnic foods at different times of the day. I see an associate just as I get in the door so I ask "Before I walk all around the store; are you sold out of bath tissue?" "We still have some 8-packs of Charmin; aisle 8 dead ahead." "Thanks so much... you're magical!" I reply, rushing my little 1/2-size man-cart down the aisle. Just as I get there, up comes another associate with boxes of Cushelle; he starts dumping out these big 20-paks. Each looks to be about 2/3 of the pack I usually get at COSTCO.
"Awesome!" I exclaim. "I just survived a failed COSTCO run; I can finally go home." I toss a couple of the packs in my cart. "Ummmm... are you limiting quantities at this time...?" "No..." he says. "But if we run out, we run out." I eye him cautiously, then grab a third. "I know I should feel bad, but I've been at this for 4 hours. I'm going to grab another so I don't have to face this madness again anytime soon." "No comment." he answers, grinning slyly.
mnem
All my son cared about was the 3-packs of cream cheese.