The Comfort Zone

It's amazing how you can do things you've always done, but change one small element and the whole experience is different.

Today, after a nice walk around a lake, playground time, and races on a football field, we decide to all venture to Costco. That's right. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday. (The kids were really thirsty, we needed a few things and the soda there is 20 ounces for $.64 tax included, and free refills!!!). First of all, the clientele is obviously very different from a weekday morning. I'm not used to Costco being filled with so many men under the age of 75 wearing shorts and t-shirts. Also, there were so many stations set up offering services. Normally, there are a lot of freebie foods being given out, but this was free massages, and free temporary tattoos, and Fidelis sign up, and something else that was just too crowded for me to see what was being hawked. Being with MBB changed the equation too, but that was good thing. It's fun to see things you always see through someone else's new vantage point. He's been there before, and every time he comes his hatred of Costco diminishes a little more. He blames he current housing crisis on Costco. If not for Big Warehouse stores, we wouldn't need large houses with oversized mortgages to store our groceries.

The thing that was most different today was how crowded it was. Ergo,the lines. They were VERY long, but I got behind someone who didn't have a cart but a rolling open platform. Those are the best in Costco, because those generally do not get unpacked, and the cashier just scans everything with the wand, the patron pays, and we all move on. Well, it was a great plan until the manager decided to count up the money just before big palette guy's turn. If not for that, we would have been out of there in a flash. Everyone else avoided that line, so we really would have sailed trough. Rookies. It worked out because that's when the kids went to use the bathroom, and then refill their sodas. Hey, $.64 for 40 ounces of soda is amazing.

This got me thinking about how we do things daily that become such a part of our routine, that we don't even notice how much we enjoyed their familiarity until something disrupts it.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a grocery store that I generally do not frequent, even though it's right here in my town, and I know people who really like it. I now know that I am not one of those people. I felt like a stranger, an interloper even. I did not belong. When I walked into the store there must have been 15 baby carriages parked outside, which really should have been my first clue that this experience was going to be a bit different than the usual trip for chicken, milk and tomatoes. Well, in I went. I probably should have turned right around. There was nowhere to move. I could hardly get into the store, and I certainly had a hard time maneuvering the aisles. Of course I didn't know where anything was, and when I went to pay there was a cash register devoted to "orders." These are for people who call or fax in their shopping list, and someone in the store shops for them and delivers it to their home. A great service for those who don't drive, or have a lot of little kids at home and need the help getting the necessities into the house, but when you're shopping it's a big hindrance. Many of these "shoppers" are there all day, so they feel that they have the right of way, and leave their heavily laden carts smack in the middle of the aisle. They are also, there all day, so they really don't mind being there "all day." Not that I am in such a rush, but there's rushed, efficient, leisurely, and "I'm getting paid by the hour, no matter how many orders I finish." The line up of carts at that register was 18 deep.

The line I got on to pay was considerably shorter, but took almost as long as I would assume a line serving 18 people could presumably take. There were only two people in front of me and I waited online for 20! minutes. Then the cashier was surly. Maybe she didn't know what to do with someone who had fewer than ten items, quite obviously a rarity on that day. I could see where she could be a very pretty woman, if she would just smile once or twice, and maybe talk in something other than grunts.

So my inability to find chimichurri sent me to this grocery because I was right nearby, was going to make my own, and my regular grocery was out of fresh parsley and oregano.

Since it seems that extensive traveling is not in the cards right now, I will have to continue to broaden my apparently very narrow horizons by shopping in stores I don't usually patronize.

New Loewe's, here I come!