The Perils of Entering Costco

Costco memberships should not be given to the masses for they can lead to broken relationships, bad decisions and a feeling of being run over by a Mack truck once you look at your credit card statement and see a big Costco sum accompanied by a feeling of “What did I buy and how did that happen?” feeling. It all starts when you enter the parking lot trying to get as close as you can to the entrance, while avoiding the zombie like creatures staggering around with heaps of bulk food and electronic gadgetry balancing precariously in their carts. They are unaware of the agitated motorists awaiting their spots as they are still in their post purchase “Look what I found!” shopping high. Yesterday, I found myself in Costco midday to buy a few essentials – poultry, bread etc. I took the little coupon flyer from the kind Costco employee after she verified my Gold Star membership and entered the arena. I simply cannot walk in a straight line in Costco. I zigzag back and forth enticed by the silly insulated drinking containers, thermal hiking socks of various colours, and the latest cozy blankets which magically appear right near the entrance at the first sign of a nip in the air. Gawd I love those…some with double lining, a myriad of wonderful colours….imagine snuggling up to one of those by the fire with one of those handy little tea sets that they have positioned nearby…After about spending 20 minutes in the first corner of the store, I attempted to make it down to the food section. Not to happen of course - you see, in MY Costco they have the clothing right in the centre of the damn store. You cannot avoid it. If you get there early, the brightly coloured garments are sitting in nice neat piles and are just waiting to be upturned by the early birds. Funny thing is – if something has been in Costco for at least a week, good luck finding your size. My behaviour and opinions are directly related to the state of the piles - if they are neat, I probably won’t find my size anyways, so I take a quick look and carry on my merry way. If they are strewn about, if gives me this wild sense that it must be some great, coveted item if so many people have rifled through it, so I should probably dig in and see if I may score something buried 2 feet down. I can just imagine how attractive I must look digging and pitching things from left to right in hopes of scoring some ridiculous, impulsive necessity.

When we go to Costco as a family, I always make the mistake of telling the 3 boys to go and look at whatever they want, and we will catch up later. Without fail, off they go with the cart while I do my quick visit to the garment section, then make my way to the boring food section. What  ALWAYS happens is that I start to perform this annoying balancing act,as I begin to collect more and more items, and there is surprisingly no cart with 3 boys running up to my rescue. The outcome is usually 1 of two things – I find myself stomping all the way back to the entrance to the electronics section where they are pawing at some new technological advancement, or I am calling out to them as they stand clustered about some food display tuning me out completely awaiting their rations.

This is why yesterday, I went to Costco ALONE.

“Goat Cheese and apples?” offered the first lady with her little paper cups nicely laid out with glops of this offering inside. “Hmmm…ok, why not?” I offered as I reached for the sample. It was a wee bit messy, and I am a very enthusiastic eater, so I mashed the whole thing into my face with sheer delight (there were no forks to be had) and made sure that I got every last bit of it. When I peeled the paper doily off my face, I noticed a small scattering of onlookers studying my actions. Some were concerned, others couldn’t wait to see what the hell I had just inhaled. With a job well done, off I went to pick up a few things and truly get the heck out of there. “PShuuuuuuuuh! Flip, flip!” “Oh what is this?” I asked politely of the bored young woman avoiding my gaze…”Taquitos and chili sauce” Well…that cheese sampler was a bit small, and I had not yet had lunch…”Thanks!” It was gone in a flash. Not bad really…ok...I needed to pick up my pace. This was silly. As I rounded the corner, there was a rather serious woman with nothing in her warmer. Only the bravest I noticed would approach her. I left her alone and carried on. The box that she had on display was that of some sort of quesadilla. Rounding the next corner, there was a rather athletic looking guy slicing up gluten free cheese pizza. I marvelled to myself at how obviously impeccable my timing was. I smashed it back in sheer delight and was on my way. As I was in the dairy section, a rather peppy employee marched past sporting a quesadilla as if it were a piece of gold. Where did she get that? I spun my cart around and went back to Ms. Bitter. “Do you have any of those?” I asked. 2 other women that were 10 feet back unsure of how to apprach inched their carts forward with trepidation. The woman let out a big sigh and said, “Uh…yesss.” She took one out and chopped it into a gazillion pieces so that we would leave her alone. I took my prize, threw it down the hatch all the while burning my face off. I wasn’t about to admit to her that it was both nasty and painful tasting all at the same time. She probably would have nailed me with her spatula. Ok…self- talk time. For heaven’s sake Stephanie this is Costco! What are you doing? What have you become? And where are you now? Ah yes! Back on task…I threw some dairy products in the cart and got ready to make a beeline for the cash area. Why is that man looking so intent over there? Wow…he is making that employee a little uncomfortable. You know that look a dog has when it is wanting you to toss some scraps from the dinner table? THAT’s the look her was sporting. Just ridiculous. Hmmm…what was that smell? Kinda Italianish…savoury…oooooo…MEATBALLS! I stood beside him and we both assumed the pose together. Gosh they looked good. The gal started stabbing them with a meat thermometer hoping that they would cool quickly so that she could launch them at us and send us on our merry way.

Nice Cheese appetizers, a couple of savoury mains…I could really use something sweet right now! Fantastic!! Grapefruit slices in a cheap, icky liquid! “Yes I’ll try one please.” I nodded poitely as she rattled off all of the amazing things you could do with the grapefruits – including freezing them, etc etc. Across the aisle, the Oigo yogurt looked inviting, but my ”moment of consideration” got zapped when the employee minding the station tapped another newbie’s hand for reaching over attempting to take one of the little containers. “No! You must not do that!! You are not permitted to touch the containers! You cannot do that!” Yikes, spell was truly broken for me.

Thank goodness my journey was winding up at the trash bags and dog treats cause no one was sampling any of those things or else who knows what the hell I would have done? I paid the unavoidable sum at the cash that I ALWAYS seemed to arrive at and started to stagger out of the store. No idea what was in the cart, but it was a pretty entertaining experience. Don’t you love it when the door guards at the exit put the slash through your receipt with the little marker as if they are really taking in EVERYTHING that you have purchased? Not even a little smilely face on my receipt. Oh well, I couldn’t feel too cheated as I had certainly had my fill and then some. Homeward bound to unload my boxes and begin a whole new discovery of what I had just collected J

 

Dad's Atrocious School Lunches and the Cherry Tomato Disaster

School lunches were always miserable for me. Especially when dad made them. This was coupled with the fact that I detested my lunchbox - a Barbie one that was given to me as a special gift. It was special alright, with its hard plastic and royal blue shell and a big Barbie sticker image covering the front. Yes Barbie with her blonde hair, plastered on grin and unimaginable endowments. The thermos was tall with strange mirrored glass on the inside. When you screwed off the top, it became the cup. If you dropped the thermos, the mirrored glass would shatter into a million pieces. It was kind of like this, except it was royal blue, and the box itself was hard plastic, not vinyl...

The contents of my lunch varied little from day to day and would be a sad combination of: cherry tomatoes, a Laura Secord pudding (the kind in the metal tin wrapped in yellow paper with pull back lid), a banana, a mini dessert such as a Wagon Wheel, or a Twinkie and of course the main course, which consisted of a sandwich on white bread with butter. We didn’t use Mayonnaise for fear it would go rancid by midday for lack of refrigeration and poison us. I went to Britannia Heights Separate School (now renamed JL Jordan) and we kept our lunch pails in a rolling wall of cubby holes. Other girls had the same lunch box as me, and on many occasions I was tempted to “accidently” snatch one of their lunchboxes and devour what treasures were inside. It HAD to be better than my daily lunchtime letdown. 

The Queen of fabulous lunches was my friend Danielle. Her mom was very creative and would do cool things like boil water, toss some hot dogs inside which would magically be ready once the lunch bell rang. She also brought hot soup in her thermos and potato chips for recess. I would report this back to dad, and he would listen, and then probably secretly curse Danielle’s mom. Despite my daily menu suggestions for dad, my lunch would be the same. I remember how this really nice guy in class never brought lunch on a daily basis, so a truck would arrive outside and he could pick whatever he wanted. To me, that seemed like a dream, but to him I don’t think he felt quite the same way.

The Cherry Tomato Disaster.

On one particular day, I popped open my lunch with my regular lack of enthusiasm that I had at every lunch hour. This lunch in particular was a real winner, and consisted of a white Wonder Bread sandwich with butter and a slice of processed Kraft cheese. To compliment this was a Laura Secord pudding, a handful of cherry tomatoes and a thermos full of white milk. My stomach still flips uncomfortably when I think of it. I sat at a big round table with my friend Jennifer and my other friend John. Per the normal routine, a teacher would walk around and supervise us to ensure that we were eating and not talking, and that we were consuming our nutritious offerings. I was probably around 6 years old at the time, and I had truly had it. Enough of this. No more. I began to devise a plan of how to escape from this ordeal, and get outside for lunchtime recess. I studied the objects in front of me, and it wasn’t long before the wheels were turning and I knew EXACTLY what to do. I wasn’t a huge fan of white milk, so I basically had to hold my nose and throw it down the hatch so that I wouldn’t be subjected to the taste. Next was the chocolate pudding – no sweat there. Gone. Sister Davis glided by and I smiled appreciatively at her lunch monitoring skills. She probably wondered why, for the first time ever I actually looked pleased about lunch. 

Soon it was time to execute my plan. White bread with butter on it was very easy to mash up and form into a putty-like ball due to its moist, cheap composition. I experimented with rolling larger balled-up pieces, and smaller ones to see which would work better. The larger ones were preferable, as I could make fewer of them and be done with it. The only major obstacle was that the mouth of the thermos was really small, so it was hard to bash the sandwich putty down and not draw attention to myself. Jenn looked on with curious horror, but said nothing. John was in lala land and minded his own business. It was better that way; I didn’t want to attract attention while I was working. I felt a wild rush of adrenaline likely comparable to what escapees from Alcatraz must have felt at the thought of freedom. I was almost there. Free. 

Once the sandwich was ‘gone’ I studied the cherry tomatoes…hmm…what to do with these? I couldn’t eat them because the acid would cause upset tummy as I had just consumed a thermos of milk and a chocolate pudding. They were so perfectly explosive and bulbous…and the thermos was pretty packed. I placed one of them in the thermos and gave it a wee push. “Pop! Splat.” Perfect. I proceed with the other four. It was quite impressive just how flat those little suckers could deflate! Once the 5^th victim had been squishedd, I screwed the cap back on the thermos.  I motioned for Sister to come and grant me my freedom. Note - you weren’t allowed to simply pack up your things and go outside – there was an inspection involved. I left the Ziplock bag inside the lunchbox and the pudding can toppled on its side to really stage the scene and make it look like a well-appreciated lunch. Soon I felt her looming over me. I slid the blue plastic box towards her. “You’re done?” she questioned. “Yes I am!” I said with a little too much enthusiasm. “Open the thermos.” She wasn’t laughing. The room began to spin, and my vision was going blurry. I could feel the colour draining from my face. I pulled the plastic box towards me and uncapped the now 10 pound thermos. It was truly very sad looking with the deflated red skins packed into the opening of the vessel. I was silent, avoiding her glare. Jenn’s eyes were like saucers, but she said nothing. “You will eat that before going outside.” I was wrought with wild, 6 year old humiliation, but refused to cry. This was after all dad’s fault and I wasn’t going to take the hit for it. I gnawed on a few of the tomato skins and took my time. There was no way that I was going to subject myself to the sandwich putty. At about the ‘5 minutes left of lunch hour’ mark, she released me. She probably knew that I had another thing coming to me once I got home...but that is another story. The vision of dad saying some colourful words, hunched over the garbage with long extraction tool inside the thermos is enough to make me feel numb again.

Menchie's is Evil

“Menchie’s…Men-chie’s…What is that place anyways?” I thought to myself as I first laid eyes on it. It looked like a daycare with its bright colours and happy-go-lucky feel.  Also, it was wedged between Winners and Mark’s Work Wearhouse, so I didn’t really think too much about it. What was it that used to be there? Oh yes – Bentleys, the luggage store. Just another establishment that would struggle to be seen, and heard and appreciated. That seemed to happen quite a bit in that location, so I dismissed it.

Then one day they had the seating area wide open with happy shining patrons inside. We had to pass by it on route home from Kai’s piano lesson, so we decided to wander in. Oh….it was one of THOSE places. Kinda like a Yogurty’s, but with more variety of soft serve yogurts/sorbets and with more confection and oddities to dump on top.

 

I never understood the appeal of ruining ice cream or yogurt for that matter by burying it in sugary garbage…We entered the store, “Hi! Welcome to Menchie’s! Have you been here before?” It was such a big welcome that I felt as though I should give an appreciation or acceptance speech. So much for sneaking in and checking it out. “No actually…” I muttered. “Well here are the sample cups! Feel free to try anything you like!” She motioned to a tray of empty white paper mini cups, so innocent, so empty. Kai and I launched into the discovery process. We had some work to do. Maybe I’ll try just one, after all, I felt in a bit of a fruity mood. Strawberry tart! Only around 90 calories! Pineapple tart! Same! Oh even the more chocolatey varieties had way fewer calories than I would have thought. For those of you who hate calorie counting, just go with it for now – ok? And look at this! Peanut butter and chocolate! What a treat! “She did say that we could sample whatever we wanted – right?” Asks Stephanie, the adult who should know better, of the 8 year old who could care less about rules. “Yup!” he gleamed with perfect chocolate ring around his mouth and ‘next flavour to sample’ strawberry running down his arm. After about 8 samples, I felt confident that I had made the right choice….es. You see, Menchie’s so generously allows you to ooze multiple flavours into one glorious bucket, cup, vat, thingy. “Mrrrrrr...” Out came the peanut butter and chocolate! “Mrrrrrrr…” Hello Vanilla! How fun this was? Now what to put on top? Hmmm…no gummy bears and sours for this this girl! “Kai…stay away from the brownies, they always try to entice you with those, and they are never fresh”. I poked the picker-upper tongs into them. Hmmm…these ones seemed ok. Perhaps I was being too hasty with that announcement. I plopped in one, then feeling as though the arrangement was looking imbalanced, I added a second one. “Ok, I think I’m done.” For good measure, I walked along the sugar and sauce bar to make sure that I was happy with my resulting treat. ‘Peanut butter crackle sauce’ and ‘Chocolate crackle sauce’ Eew. That sounded awful. I lifted the lid only to be engulfed in the smells of melted peanut butter and chocolate with little crunchies (crackles) dispersed throughout. Oh. Hmm. Well…it is important to at least give something a proper try before simply dismissing it. That would be rather close minded of me. Right? “Ooooze – glop! Ooooze – glop!” One of each for good measure J. Kai opted for a more sugary, gummy approach to his toppings, and wasn’t shy to get a bit of an assortment.

We sat down and proceeded to indulge. I normally don’t care much for ice cream. I can take it or leave it. Normally. Enough said. I looked across at Kai, and it was rather disgusting to watch him. Those long gummy worms once covered in ice cream became quite slippery and impossible to pick up with a spoon, so he was picking them up with his hands, tipping his head back, and downing them. Kind of like a baby bird feeding itself. My more civilized self would have told him to stop, but I didn’t see a better solution, so I just sat there a bit grossed out. We were having such a good time that I really didn’t give a damn.

So there you have it…yah…Menchie’s. Definitely not for the weak, and they make you feel so damn welcome it is hard not to feel like family and just wanna hang out there for a while. So go there. Have fun. And here’s the kicker MONDAYS ARE 2 for 1!