Costco shopping would be a great work out plan…if it weren’t for all of the food vendor carts with samples. Small bites of this and small bites of that can add up to pounds of padding. Yum – let me pause to snack rather than stack the cart! 

While the vendor carts stick out like a tongue that is eager for tastes, the acres of aisles behind them hold the tastier treats: consumer goods that fill the over-sized basket quickly. Gotta-have-it’s-a good-deal. None of us shoppers can help ourselves. It’s part of being an American who has succumbed to Abundance Theory – and practice. 

Once my cart is mounded like the Great Pyramid of Giza, pushing it becomes a work out for arms as well as legs. Then there’s all that lifting items from the deep well of the cart to conveyer belt.

I can’t include the heft of the wallet in the exercise routine because payment only requires one card. How convenient for Costco and me. We are bonded with cash consequences deferred, like the calories imbibed earlier. This, too, is American. Let’s not get started on that rant.

But sussing out health care and special sale items could make a sane person crazy. Up and down and back and forth, ying and yang, and whatever. Several times I’ve left without items I needed – though not without items I didn’t need, because that is the Costco plan.

Then I noticed that other shoppers suffered the same plight, even when working in duo. I began to roll my cart alongside people who were looking cross-eyed over their lists, shoulders sagging in exasperation. I said, “I know you don’t work for Costco, but I wonder if you have seen ____ as you looked for your items? And, maybe I can help you find yours.”

Smiles and cooperative spirit emerge every time, and we all find our items. As Costco consumers we are as bonded as much as the card, the calories, the quest and I are. I am finding community in the Costco Neighborhood.

Mr. Rogers would be proud.