When Sampling Goes Too Far

Years ago, Ryan and I stopped going to Costco after an unfortunate incident involving the purchase of a fifty-gallon tub of mustard.  That could be an exaggeration, but somewhere, that mustard is still only half empty.


This year, we decided we could try a membership again, since we now have extra little people to throw food on the floor feed.


I am a little obsessed; squeezable applesauce, giant bags of sweet potato fries, a wide variety of cheese snacks (we're paying for our membership in cheese savings alone, for real), I could go on and on.


If you aren't a Costco member, you might not be aware that on the weekends they offer free meals.  Those meals masquerade as sample stations scattered throughout the stores, but I've come to learn that they are most definitely meals for many, many of the people that frequent Costco each Saturday and Sunday.


In one visit, I overheard someone complaining about being in line for over ten minutes.  That was for a sample of Costco's chicken salad.  Another woman was berating the poor sample server because the shopper had been back to the sample station three times and hadn't gotten a sample yet (cream puffs).


Finally, I had the audacity to need some flour.  A man was sitting on the flour, eating something out of a little white sample cup.  I politely (I thought) asked him man if I could grab some flour.  I smiled, expecting him to smile back.


"I'm SITTING here!" he retorted, huffing and puffing and shooting eye daggers with me as he stood up.  He continued to mumble under his breath, "People can SIT around here."


I'm still enamored with Costco.  Now, though, I try to schedule our rendezvous for weekdays, preferably early afternoon, when I don't have to play cart bumper cars around the ends of each aisle.


Then you have the gas lines...

Dylan eating his Costco apple

at home