Another Part of American Life

Last night Sue and I climbed another rung in the ladder of American life: We became Costco members.

For the longest time I considered Costco as just a place to save money by buying in bulk, and for the most part that is still true. While I would still consider them for bulk purchases if they had what I was after, that's not what made me want in. They have items of quality that other stores don't have. Certain things have their name on them (Kirkland brand) that are very good deals, and some things they carry may be fairly standards items but the way it's made is just for them. There are a lot of things they have going for them. At any rate, while it used to be, "Pay for a membership and we'll let you buy our bulk products," now it's become, "Pay for a membership and we'll let you shop our select products."

A lot of times their deals price-wise aren't any better than the typical store, but some aspect of the deal has been slanted in our favor by the folks at Costco. For example, if you buy a Dell computer from them, they double the manufacturer's warranty. In some cases they even have a better "package" of options inside as well.

So what did we buy? The reason I went last night was because I was out of vitamins, and I buy their Kirkland brand version of Centrum Silver. They are a good deal of course (and I'll assume they are helping me stay healthy) at 9-something for a 400-pack. We also wanted a jar of their artichoke hearts. They sell a huge jar of marinaded artichoke hearts for like $7.50. It's the size of most large jars of dill pickles, and they're good. I also bought a tub of dip that I had at my cousin Melinda's house. It's jalapeno/artichoke/Parmesan dip, and it's good stuff with tortilla chips!

So anyway, we only bought those three things (and sat and had dinner at their snack bar afterwards), but now we are real Americans. Now we can flash the badge of honor at the door with the same look of smug indifference as a snooty Bellevue shopper if we want to.

We had an interesting evening of inter-family relations last night too. Sarah needed me (us) to take her picture for a school art thing. Apparently, she needed to set up a picture like an old portrait and then paint herself on canvas from the picture after she prints it. We drove to her house and Teresa was out mowing the lawn. It's a little weird for all involved when I go over there with Sue, but everyone seems to get along fine. All things considered, I guess we're all very lucky they get along at all. Anyway, instead of taking the pictures at Sarah's house, we opted to go to Suzie's house because she had some Rennaisance costume stuff and a couple of good chairs for picture-taking. It went off without a hitch, and Sarah looked quite beautiful in the dress. After taking a number of moody-looking low-light pictures, Sue burned them all on a cd for her and we took her back home. I'm sure Sarah was pleased with the outcome!