Yesterday's Costco “Trip”

I knew ahead of time it was going packed with holiday shoppers, so I did some preparations. This Costco is in Utah County...a part of the world that you can’t quite compare to any other.  I had just finished skiing at Sundance and was dressed for warmth, so my wife and I decided to tailgate outside a little bit before we go into stadium for the main event.

I made sure I had my sunglasses and badger fur hat on before I entered this American bazaar.  I always want the attention that comes with looking like I don’t belong.  The dark sunglasses let me observe without the shoppers knowledge of my eyes looking deep into their soul as I categorize them and predict their next move.

When a human being is in shopping mode at Costco during the holidays, it’s akin to a big hunt that I imagine the Ute tribe would have right on this same soil.  These modern day shoppers are going in for a kill, but for their own tribe, so cooperation is not priority.  The famous pumpkin pies get restocked and then depleted like toilet paper at the beginning of Covid. You sense everyone wanting to wish you a “Good Afternoon”.

I didn’t want to hunt this year.  I wanted to be the observer, I wanted not to move through Costco but have Costco move through me.  With a microdose of several substances, I enter this holy place of commercialism for worship.  I decided to let the Christmas spirit be with me and told myself that all the shoppers crashing into my cart are really just having a good time. They mostly reciprocated and laughed with me at the obscurity of adult bumper car ride we found ourselves in.

I also had airpods in my ears so I could pick the soundtrack for this experience because there is no music in Costco.  I accidentally left my phone in the car, so I was streaming music from my Apple Watch, and I had no apps to distract me from my pure observation of fellow shoppers.  

Natalie danced around with a huge smile, bringing back spoils of her hunt and filling up the cart.  Before I know it we had 3 trees in our cart, which really put me in a great mood because I had a mini zen garden producing fresh oxygen in this windowless Temple of Goods.

Little kids in the carts loved the badger hat, and would make eye contact, but their parents couldn’t take their eyes off of the prey they were in the store to capture.  I realized that I was among the youth in this shopping experience, connecting directly with their wonder of the human traffic around us.

So here are the inventions that came to mind that would make Costco more civil:

1. Blinkers on the shopping carts to indicate when you will turn.  Heavy ask in Utah, where few people use them in actual cars.

2. Hazard lights on shopping carts for when you stop and need to signal for people to go around.

3. Traffic lights every 4 isles and maybe lanes for traffic going both ways.

4. Costco shopping license that you renew every 3 years that tests you on how to navigate store correctly and what to do in case of cart accidents with other shoppers (I had two, but they were mild and politeness was used by both parties).

5. Guided shopping meditation that you can use on your phone and aipods while shopping to lower tensions.

6. Tour guides through Costco for people unfamiliar with how to do it.  These could be taught by the InstaCart runners that know Costco inside and out.

Here is our post game tailgating party. $707 was the damage. No strategy on packing whatsoever. When we finally arrived home I had the kids get next to the trunk, ready to rebound any objects that shifted during the drive home and were ready to fall out.

Please tell me if you have every tried shopping as more of the observer with music in your ears. Watch the people, marvel at their hunting skills. I hope you have a chance to experience this soon and that my email will get stuck in your brain and causes you to have a spiritual experience during your next shopping adventure.

Merry Christmas Eve to All

SP