I dropped off my good friend, Kelly, at the hospital for a procedure and knowing I had a few hours to kill, what do I do with my time? Go to Costco. Seems innocent enough, but it's the Fife's business Costco who happens to be having a 3-day sale. I must say looking at the brochure flyer, there were some pretty awesome discounts available. So I take a friend and we go.
Kelly wanted a new microwave and it is the least I could do, right? Especially since she is incapacitated and can't make it. Well...as I drive up to the postage size parking lot, an anomaly in Costco's business plan, I realize I may have made a mistake. Turning into the parking lot was a game of vehicle twister and they just spun red-right-hand marker. I could see people's tempers had already evaporated, so I quickly switched to aggression mode. It's a little known button on the steering column that can be engaged in such a situation. It now becomes a game of patience and speed..patience to find a parking spot and swift dexterity to get there first.
With some cunning maneuvers we finally parked and weaved through the parking lot to the front doors. Since I knew that the microwave was going to be a big purchase, I grabbed a cart from the employee shoving them in. Conveniently they were place just inside, so we pulled one off the shelve and started the salmon swim upstream through the masses of eager shoppers.
I don't think I've ever seen as many people shopping at Costco in my life, even on those kiosk-snack Saturdays they use to promote products. Now keep in mind the Costco in Fife is just for business products, which will differ from the "general" version of Costco most of us are used to. They don't have the cute jackets, clothes, jewelry, toys and other fun items we consumers like to get. This is just things that would relate to restaurants, offices and other business owners/people. So I was flabbergasted at the amount of people who turned out for the deals being offered.
I actually saw someone push a cart full of motor oil...about 20 cases and just as many mega-sized packages of toilet paper. Seemed an odd combination, but what the hey, you get what you need.
I stood in line for the next 1/2 hour jockeying back in forth to make room for passerbyers that circled the product around the waiting lines. Sweat is dripping off me because of all the additional bodies that are crammed into the mega-small staging area for check out. While pursuing my fellow insane shoppers, it did cross my mind "What the hell am I doing here!" a few thousand times while I waited. But I was committed and more importantly I was trapped.
I finally reached the god-like conveyor belt where I got to put MY stuff.....(bells and angels are singing). I am deliciously estactic because I am soooo close to leaving. As I gatherer my microwave and hustle out, I realize that I still have to get out of the parking lot. Crap.
