Bye bye Costco

[susandennis]

For several years after I first moved to Seattle, Costco was my closest grocery store.  Their #1 flagship store is about a mile from here.  I loved it. I spent hours there. It was pre-fat, smoking days so I bought my cigarettes there and my clothes.  Not to mention tons of food and everything else. I even bought my portable air conditioner there one day because it was by the front door and said whisper quiet. I got a Costco guy to take it out of the box and I rolled it to my car and took it home.  

Over the years, they tore down #1 and built a fancy new store next door to it.  Also the teeny smelly Japanese market built a huge new store and added not only dairy products but just about anything else you might want from spaghetti-o's to vegetables I cannot come close to identifying.

I'm too fat for Costco clothes now and couldn't afford to smoke even if I still wanted to. Now that I'm not working, I have the time to pop out to the market any time I want and no longer need to buy 500 rolls of toilet paper at a time or fill my freezer with two months worth of stuff at a time.

I go for months and months without even going into the store.  So... renewing my membership is just a silly waste of $$.  

Today, I'm going to put on my good walking shoes and make my last trip.  I'm going to walk up and down every aisle and savor it.  Actually, it's really only my last trip until something they carry falls into my Absolutely Must Have list and is worth forking over another year of membership for. But that could be a long while.

---

I have this wonderful internet radio by my bed.  It has a great sound and lots of versatility - I mean it has the whole of the internets!  However, some functions are a bit fiddly.  The way it was set up, turning it on and getting it to tune to a nice station and play for 90 minutes and then turn off (the sleep function), was so convoluted and involved that even trying it woke me up for another hour.

So yesterday, I fired up google for hints and spent some quality time with the radio and good info.  I can not hit 1 button to turn it on, 1 button to set my station, 1 button for sleep and then a scroll down to 90 minutes.  Easy peasy.

I used to set the TV to sleep. I'd watch the first 5 or 10 minutes of the news at 11 that would then scroll into Nightline.  Then they moved Nightline for a talk show and about the time I'd be drifting off, I'd get woken up by applause.

Now I am 3 buttons and a scroll from 90 minutes of our local classical radio station (which I cannot get back here in the bedroom on a normal radio so it's treat by itself) while I drift off.  Between that and the Target nose strips, I am pretty much ready the the sleeping Olympics!  

Comments

[cienna2000.livejournal.com]

I used to love Costco too. We have not been able to afford to do that type of shopping in a long time. We recently discovered my allergy medicine is much, much cheaper there; but not enough to justify the membership cost. My solution: give Nicole the money and have her pick it up when she goes there for whatever she is buying.

[cienna2000.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think that is a federal law on access to the pharmacy. My allergy medicine went OTC a year or two ago, so pharmacy access isn't quite enough.

ETA: Hit post before I meant to. Thank you for pointing the pharmacy access without a membership. Not everyone is aware of that and it may help someone that reads this. :)

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

I shall expect to see you during the gold medal ceremonies.

[howeird]

Guess again. She will sleep right through it. :-)

[susandennis]

ha!

[howeird]

The only thing which has kept me a Costco member for lo these many years is their ultra-low prices on photo services. They used to be the least expensive place to buy 100-foot rolls of Ektachrome and Tri-X Pan film and the empty canisters to roll them into. Now they have the best price for poster sized prints (and they are the quickest, too) and 8mm or slides to DVD transfers.

As for the rest of the store, I may buy lox, croissants, bagels, and pistachios, but those are for huge quantities.