Material World

As a 5'11" guy, spending time in Costco yesterday made me realize what life must be like everyday for that family in Little People, Big World on TLC.

The place is ginormous. A car chase in there would surely go unnoticed. You could probably toss a banana peel on the floor and it would dry up before anyone actually wiped out on it. Such a waste.

The Costco shopping carts are huge, too. 2 or 3 would be enough to carry away all the "seaweed" inventory from Lululemon in Kitsilano. (I'm thinking it'll be deeply discounted any time now.)

I can't even remember the last time I went to Costco - suffice to say it's been a long time. So, hanging out there for a couple hours with a couple friends was a little crazy for me simply because it's quite shocking to be among such excess.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the point of Costco - I just can't quite comprehend how someone with a shopping addiction could ever withdraw when stores like this exist.

For me, one of the best things about shopping there is all the free samples available. It is that which kicked off my addiction to Stacy's pita chips with hummus. It is also that which caused me learn just how incredibly cheap generic Benadryl is in the Costco pharmacy - I needed it immediately after trying a free sample which contained almond paste... to which I'm highly allergic. Live and learn.

Allow me to share with you some items of excess available there:

As Danny wondered aloud when we walked past those cordless phones, "do you really need 4 handsets?" Good question, I thought. Thimble-sized condos in Vancouver have no space for that. Of course, if you choose to downsize your total number of handsets, you'll also need to downsize your family somehow. Perhaps the Family Pro-Fryer from T-fal can help:

I suppose that fryer could also be used in food preparation.

Speaking of which, that's definitely one great thing about Costco - the food. You can get pretty much anything your starving little heart desires... in great, vast quantities. But make sure what you're buying is big enough for your appetite. We decided against the 1.4 Litre bottle of caesar salad dressing because that's clearly not big enough for the salad we had in mind for ourselves:

Neither was the 5 Litre bottle of olive oil...

If all this has you getting peckish, that's exactly where the free samples come in. We tried Belgian chocolate cookies which needed to be washed down with delicious, organic pomegranate and blueberry juice...

After you've stocked up on gigantic portions and filled up on free samples, the next thing you have to look forward to is waiting in line for an elevator down to the parking lot with all the other excess-junkies...

Saving the best for last, I'd like you to have a look at my final photo today - my shopping trip to Costco revealed to me that downtown Vancouver is home to the Great Wall of Spam:

I plan to email that picture to as many people I don't actually know as possible.

Oh, and if you want a really good laugh... go visit the Spam homepage.