My friend Laura invited me for a girls’ night out with our mutual friend Esther. When she told me the destination, I hesitated. It was a place of dark temptation for me, a place I hadn’t dared visit for years.
“Come on,” Laura said, teasingly. “You know you want to.”
“I’ll drive,” I said, and picked up my girlfriends after dinner. Esther was practically bouncing on her seat. “I’m so excited!” she said.
I was too, though I feared falling off the wagon. After 20 minutes we had arrived and were standing outside the car, looking at the bright, beckoning entrance. Esther raised her arms and asked, “Do I hear a battle cry?”
“Hoo-yah!” shouted Laura, who has a relative in the military and knows these things.
The three of us marched together for Girls Night Out into the surging crowds within Costco. My friends steered their oversized carts, hunting for bargains while I stood in line for my new membership card. I was minutes away from the privilege of buying shampoos, bottles of ibuprofen, and industrial-sized boxes of cereal, all in triplicate.
As empty nesters, we needed very little in bulk, except for dark roast coffee pods and chocolate chips. Yet Costco was already selling shmura matzah and grape juice for Pesach at unbeatable prices. They’d sell out in a flash. The woman at the membership desk welcomed me back into the Costco family, and urged me to upgrade to the executive level, so I could also get discounts on travel, optical, pharmacy and even cars. “Do you need a new car?” she asked, pointing to a digital screen displaying handsome cars with burly tires.
I declined the offer, took my card, and searched for my friends, but was waylaid by a display of cool-looking bread machines. As a salesman praised its features, I realized this bread machine lookalike was actually a countertop composting machine. It would take all my food scraps, coffee grounds, and eggshells and make them into … dirt! The fact that I continued to listen to anything he said after using the word “compost” proved that I had already fallen into that dangerous consumer trance that had resulted in my husband getting a restraining order against me from coming within 400 feet of any Costco. For years, I had only driven by the store, feeling wistful but chastened.
Laura pulled me away. “We’re here for Pesach bargains, remember?” I nodded slowly, pushing my cart in an aisle as wide as an airline runway. We found Esther examining a display of organic cotton sheets, but then she had to talk me away from a $400 inflatable family lounge pool. If only so many retail stores didn’t keep closing, I wouldn’t be so captivated by seeing real stuff in real life. I also like seeing the real people who shop for real things, except for the ones who shop in their pajamas and the ones who’ve pierced their nostrils with big honking rings, like bulls. What were they thinking? I’m always tempted to ask.
It was too cold to stay in the produce department for very long, and anyway, what would I do with a four-pound bag of peeled garlic? I quickly tossed a box of cremini mushrooms, a jumbo bag of broccoli (visualizing many quiches in my future), cocktail cucumbers, mini peppers, and strawberries in my vast cart
As kosher consumers, we searched for kosher symbols throughout the bakery section, and Laura was determined to find hamantaschen rumored to be there. She triumphantly found them, and I was relieved that most everything else wasn’t kosher. Those beautiful croissants were the size of my hubcaps. Must have been at least 450 calories each.
We scored with the matzah and the grape juice. Those bottles are so huge that from now till Pesach I’ll use them as free weights.
We scored with the matzah and the grape juice. Those bottles are so huge that from now till Pesach I’ll use them as free weights. On the way toward the check out, I resisted Ghirardelli cake mixes, an aquarium-sized bucket of pretzels, and a three-pack moisturizer with collagen.
Our Girls Night Out was a success, and I’m planning to go back soon. In barely one circuit of the store I tallied more than 3,000 steps, and still arrived home without a composting machine or an inflatable pool.
Judy Gruen is the author of “Bylines and Blessings,” “The Skeptic and the Rabbi,” and other books. She is also a book editor and writing coach.
