You do not talk about Sam’s Club
Why do some people treat their Costco and Sam’s Club membership like it’s a big secret?
I’ll say, hey, next time you go to one of those places, can I tag along and get some stuff? And they react as if I had just told them that I knew about their plans to launch a sneak attack in the Ardennes. Then, when they recover from the shock that I know about their secret, well-hidden, and not at all dominating the suburban and small town landscape stores, they backpedal. You don’t want to shop there! There’s nothing to buy. There’s no real savings. It’s all a scam.
Really? Then why are you paying for membership, assholes?
They’ll still flaunt it, though. They’ll stock their pantries with sodas and mac and cheese and all manner of pre-processed, hyper-packaged foodstuffs by the truckload. I’ve often wondered if it’s possible to do one big trip to those big box stores a year and never buy groceries again. Get a bunch of deep freezers and just stock up for the apocalypse. (Because freezers will work after the apocalypse, right?)
Freedom from grocery shopping would be a wonderful thing. I despise the chore so much that I set my alarm for 3am on Sunday mornings, then drive miles out of my way to the nearest 24 hour supermarket where I can shop in peace. No clerks who want to tell me how nice a day it is, no fellow shoppers who either want to engage in chit-chat or kill me because I’m in line ahead of them. No suspicious security guards. That’s a strange one. The security guards show up during the day, but they vanish after midnight. I guess nighttime shoppers are more trustworthy than the wage slaves.
Of course, they say that most crimes/accidents/general evil happens between 3pm and 8pm. Or something like that. Which really drives home my idea that the truly dangerous people are my co-workers and fellow commuters. Zoloft-addled homicidal maniacs, driven to the tipping point by delayed trains, surly bus drivers, and the high cost of gas.
Tell the truth, I never want to have to leave my apartment again. I know that, someday, I’ll have that pleasure…but I want to have it now while I’m young and able to enjoy being a shut-in. Wake up and have that cup of coffee on the porch, watching all the idiots scurry to work. Then maybe drift inside to read a book, or do a few little household chores. On and on the day will go. I love household chores. I like cleaning, and doing the dishes. I love doing laundry. The ritual of separation – everything in its place. Same with the dishwasher. Loading it properly, then putting everything back where it belongs.
I also enjoy cooking. Again, there’s the process, the results, and the cleanup.
I’m fascinated by consumption. What’s trash and what’s recycled, and then taking trash and recycling out to the dumpster where I’m faced with the sorting thing again. I love shredding personal documents and credit card solicitations. I save up a month’s worth of stuff, then spend an hour or so just feeding it all through the shredder.
I’d be a very good shut-in. And I think shopping at Sam’s Club or wherever would go a long way towards helping remove me from the rest of the human race.
Someone asked me a few days back why I don’t drive to work. Why do I bother with the unpredictable bus, and the decaying subway? I asked them if they were insane. Tangled up in that fucking traffic between my apartment and my job in the city, burning hundreds of dollars in gas a month… I’d last a day, at best. Then, next day, stuck once again in a traffic jam, I’d start tossing Molotov cocktails into the cars next to me. Good morning, sunshine! Fwooom!
On the bus and train, I can just bury my head in a book and shut out the world.
I’ve been working too much. Day job and weekend job and personal pursuits. I’m $2000 away from paying off the car I bought last March, and never drive except to the weekend job. But I moved further out into the suburbs, and the convenience of a car is just lovely. Like when I go grocery shopping at 3am. The car will be paid off in October, then I can scale back on the weekend job. I want to have my weekends back. To take off my clothes on a Friday evening and walk around in my boxers, unwashed, unshaved, until Monday morning. Drinking in the morning and talking to myself the entire time. Maybe pick up a hobby like growing marijuana in my second bathroom, collecting guns, or sleeping with and then abandoning fat chicks.
Really, though, I need at least one 24 hour block each week where I do not see or talk to other people. Not even on the way to the dumpster, or on the phone, or in Gmail’s chat, or an accidental encounter in the lobby, or a hello while sitting on my balcony.
If I only had 500 pounds of Mac and Cheese and 1000 gallons of Gatorade, I could be a free man.