come sit next to me/pour yourself some tea _____________

Ducks and stuff

My favorite part of going to Costco is eating all the free food samples. I went with my mom on Saturday, and it was around noon, which means all kinds of culinary delight. If you've never been to Costco, they have all these carts with samples of whatever they feel like displaying, manned by employees in hair nets who prepare the food (i.e. microwave if necessary, put in the little paper cups, stick toothpicks in) and yell facts about the food they are serving. So on Saturday, there was dried fruit, dumplings, some kind of chicken steak, vanilla ice cream with brownies, orange juice, and real pineapple slices. After eating all the different samples, we were pretty full. It's nice when there's enough food to constitute an entire meal.

It's also very fun to be a part of the crowds swarming around the food samples. People from all walks of life line up in front of the carts - elderly people, pregnant housewives, large men, small children - everyone's eyes glistening with gluttony. When a particular food sample isn't ready yet, you can walk around and pretend to be looking at the items on display nearby, but there's something rather liberating about abandoning your pride and just waiting eagerly near a cart where the food is not ready yet, holding your place in line. My dad, in bourgeois scorn, used to refuse to wait in line if the food wasn't ready, because he thought it was stupid and foolish-looking to do so, but last summer I caught him humbly standing in line just like the rest of us. Ha!

My mom decided to buy a pineapple because the samples of fresh pineapple tasted so good. Now, a real pineapple is not exactly a common grocery item, but when we were at the register, at each of the four or five lanes to the right and left of us, at the moment we were paying, there was a pineapple sitting on the conveyer belt!! Good job, Costco, now that's mad business skills.

Ducks and stuff

Tuesday, May 17