I’ve been pretty misanthropic most of my life.  Not aggressively so, just kind of consistently disappointed in humans for myriad reasons.  But I’ve really spent a lot of time and energy trying to grow past that and become more understanding and patient with my fellow humans.  I’ve hung out with Buddhist monks, worked with counselors on empathy, compassion, and perspective taking.  And I’ve made a lot of progress, particularly in the last five years or so.  Living in a “big” small town has been helpful, I think, as opposed to some sprawling metropolis where you neither know nor want to know who the other city dwellers are and how they spend their time.

My view nowadays tends to be that the people I see around every day are basically good people: they get up every day to go to work (whatever that may mean in their cases) in order to take care of their loved ones.  In doing so, I believe they mostly want to avoid conflicts, problems, and hassles if they can be at all avoided.  Basically, for the most part, they just want to be left the hell alone.  Which is fine with me.  I can certainly work with that.  And I’m pretty much at peace with my fellow man.

But then I go to Costco.  And all that quasi-Disney shit goes right out the window.  All of that hard-earned progress, all of that inner peace, all of that carefully cultivated compassion for humanity?  It evaporates the moment I step into that fluorescent-lit coliseum of chaos.  Costco is where why misanthropy goes to stretch its legs, crack its knuckles, and say, “Oh, you thought you were over me?  Cute.”

To be honest, it always seems to start before I even enter the parking lot…people in The Creek are notoriously poor drivers, but for some reason, in that part of town, they are especially idiotic: stopping for no reason, have a sort of “contemplative” phase of going when the light turns green…it like they need a few seconds to consider the implications of releasing the brake and pressing on the accelerator.  So I’m always in a rapidly darkening mood by the time I get to the parking lot, which is less a place to leave your car and more a gladiatorial arena where SUVs and minivans battle for dominance.  There’s always some dickhead who decides that the rules of physics and common decency don’t apply to them, cutting across lanes diagonally like they’re being chased by a swarm of Africanized bees.  The transgressions are too numerous to list, but I’m convinced that Costco parking lots are where people go to audition for the role of “Biggest Shithead Out There.”

Then, assuming you’ve managed to find someplace suitable to leave your car and survive the hike to the actual doors of the store, you’re stopped dead in your tracks by half a dozen jackasses who somehow just realized they were at Costco and thus needed to present their Costco IDs.  So they just stop pushing the cart they just got…just stop, dead in their tracks, and start pathetically fishing through their pants pockets and wallet looking for their cards.  Get the fuck out of the way! Jesus!  Some of us can whip out our cards they same way ninja can pull out a shuriken.  I navigate around these dolts quickly, but they’ve done nothing to slow the darkening of my mood.  Then I finally step inside.

No matter how many times you’ve been there, the first thing that hits you is the sheer scale of it all.  It’s like someone took a regular grocery store, fed it steroids and meth for a year, and then dared it to fight God.  Everything is bigger, louder, and somehow more existentially threatening.

And then, of course, there are the people.  Oh, the fucking people.  Incapable of situational awareness or walking in a straight line, they meander aimlessly, pushing carts the size of small boats, stopping dead in the middle of the aisle to contemplate the mysteries of life – or, more likely, whether they really need 48 rolls of toilet paper.  Pro Tip: they do.  We all do.  It’s Costco.

Then there’s the weirdness throughout the free sample gauntlet, which is less about trying new foods and more about watching grown-ass adults devolve into feral scavengers.  I once saw a man elbow a grandmother out of the way for a tiny paper cup of microwaved ravioli.  Which was bad enough, but then I kind of respected him for it.  That’s what Costco does to you.  It makes you question your morals, your values, and whether you, too, would shove an elderly woman for a bit-sized piece of cheesecake.

The weirdness continues at the checkout line as I look down at the cartful of things I didn’t know I needed: industrial-sized tubs of baba ghanoush, a 12-pack of scissors, a kayak.  I’m almost positive all the employees hate all the customers.  How could they not?  We’re the worst.  Well, not me…I’m a fucking dream, The cashier scans my items with the dead-eyed efficiency of someone who has seen too much.  And I’m sure they have.

I need to lean on Costco delivery more.  It will help my world view.

N.P.: “Toccata And Fudge” – JUNKYARD REBEL