therealkfish

There are few experience’s I find quite as glaringly American as shopping at Costco. It’s true, buying groceries may not have the same rabid nationalism as the Fourth of July, but flag waving, fireworks, and plentiful Budweisers aside, going to Costco gives Independence Day a decent run for it’s money in terms of glorifying the American zeitgeist. Where else are overabundance, reckless overconsumption, and unnecessary competition celebrated so vehemently? There really is nothing more ludicrous than a few thousand people in a building, carts filled with 80 ounce jars of Best Foods mayonnaise (the twin pack), a box of 48 Jimmy Dean Griddle Cakes, and a cube of toilet paper the size of a Mini Cooper, shoving one another for one toothpicked cube of room temperature havarti. An interesting moment arises while standing in line for the latest toaster oven prepared snack when those waiting with you come to the realization that there can’t possibly be enough samples to go around—that’s when the character assessments begin. You see them doing the mental math, noting that there are only three samples for the four people in line, and you discover that the Filipino man to your left is shooting furtive glances your way, sizing you up to see how adamantly you are prepared to defend your right to “first come, first served.” You’re both wondering if there is another tray of moderately heated snacks seconds away from being pulled out of the toaster, or if the last remaining paper cup will need to be fought over. The tension is palpable.

The experience is magnified by the fact that there is only one Costco for all 800,000 residents of San Francisco, compounding the problem by exponentially increasing the amount of shopping carts per acre of warehouse space. A Sunday afternoon Costco run feels like the consumer equivalent of volunteering for Birkenau. The sheer number of people creates an ant farm effect, with everyone vying for the same space, attempting to steer carts toward their next purchase through the labyrinthine concrete corridors. The number of carts is excessive, that’s for sure, but this would be less of a problem were it not for the fact that each of them is indiscriminately stacked to the limits of their tensile strength with enough wholesale goods to bring Port-Au-Prince back from the brink of extinction. If every 115 pound soccer mom was deftly maneuvering corners with the handling skills of an Andretti, piloting their lineman’s sled of a shopping cart effortlessly through the masses, that would be one thing. Unfortunately, the reality looks more like the I-405/US-101 interchange in the dark heart of rush hour. Confused, scared, and unsure of their next move, people halt the momentum of their carts in order to contemplate a mid-aisle change of direction, failing to realize that the inertia of the load will do everything in its power to prevent being nudged toward the next impulse buy. This blockage creates catastrophic consequences for anyone naive enough to believe in forward progress. The pathway clogs faster than arteries at the mercy of a KFC Double Stack, locking everyone involved in the perpetual clusterfuck.

Regardless of the sense of armageddon that befalls me every time I set foot in Costco, I can’t help but walk around fascinated by the sociological experiment that its particular brand of large-scale consumerism engenders. It’s the train wreck theory in action. I know that I’ll see things I don’t like, things that might make me angry or disgusted, but I make the journey, knowing that I will leave with a stomach ache and a sense that the world is, in fact, going to shit. But I mean really, where else could I possibly go that would highlight our addiction to consumption more poignantly?

Well, I guess there’s Walmart.