WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Super Bowl Saturday vs Super Bowl Sunday Shopping
byVanderleunonFebruary 3, 2019
I was sitting around one Saturday a few years back becoming exceedingly bored with the sick and the slop of winter. Because I am an American, I overcame my malaise with the American mantra, “When the going gets boring, the bored go shopping.”
Shopping, our shared cultural catatonia. ….
Just say shop!…. Just do it!…. Get out there and ….buy, buy, BUY…. something you don’t need. Then buy some accessories for it. You’ll need those to make the thing you don’t need work like you don’t need it to.
….Then you haul your not needed crap back home and add it to the other crap you don’t need. You know, all that stuff in the spare closet, room, storage bay, house, what have you; that “place for your stuff.” Finding what we don’t need and piling it up is what we do. Like many others I can resist getting “stuff you don’t need” in my normal state, but not, I find, when I’m bored. You have a similar problem.
All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you’re saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff! Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. — George Carlin
For some strange reason, the destination that formed in my mind for this shopping excursion was “CostCo.” A vague mention of a friend about the “great deals on small televisions” put it in my mind like a BuyMe earworm. This small mental disorder was even stranger since the last thing I need in my life is another, smaller television. On second thought, the absence of a real need was probably why I really wanted one. In America, as noted above, if you don’t need it, you gotta have it.
After a few blind alleyways and false turns I pulled into the CostCo parking lot. If I hadn’t been in a Internet-overload hypnotic state this move alone would have immediately struck me as a bad idea. The sign certain? Cars shadowing shoppers slowly back to wherever they happen to be parked. Pick the wrong shopper flock and you can find yourself far, far away from the store entrance observing a spontaneous tailgate party featuring cold burritos. I got lucky and, shadowing a gaggle of shoppers, found a slot near the entrance. It was the end of my luck.
Like Rick who came to Casablanca for the waters, I’d joined CostCo for the tires. It makes a certain amount of sense since the savings on these plebeian but necessary items can be substantial. Since buying the tires, I hadn’t been back and hadn’t been exposed to the red kryptonite in the main cavern. Grabbing an abandoned cart, I entered the cavern of CostCo, flashing my card to the autonod of the otherwise unemployable person at the entrance.
Remember the haunting Coleridge poem “Kubla Khan” that he wrote on the downside of an opium jag?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Well forget it. Except for “caverns measureless” and the opiate effect, Costco’s nothing like that.
I don’t know why Wal-Mart is taking all the heat for box-store degradation of truth, justice and the American Way of Really Rich Americans. A brief tour of Costco reveals it is a much cheesier organization with the exploitation of the aged, the infirm, the alien, and the disabled more obviously on display. But who knows why some companies become fashionable to disparage while others get a semi-pass? It probably has to do with the jerking knee that says either, “Biggest is baddest,” or “The deepest pocket is the easiest to pick.” It may also have something to do with Costco’s founder jamming his overflowing sewer pipe from his money bin deep into the gaping orifices at the eternal Obama campaign….. but I digress.
The Wal-Mart stores that I’ve been in have the charm of a Swiss village compared to the Gulag atmosphere of CostCo. Oh, Costco has a look. The look is as if the Costco “Decor” vice president decreed, ”Hey, just pour a slab of concrete, drop bunches of crap here and there on the grid, and be done with it. Huh? Oh, okay slap up some industrial shelves so the bodegas of the world can find their salsa stock. And bolt some airport landing lights on the ceiling so you need to put on sunscreen before entering. Just light that sucker up so that nobody can smuggle a buttload of pretzels out the door.”
It is also evident to a single person in CostCo — in about two nanoseconds — that he or she needs to rent a family of 12 illegal aliens to get any real value out of the place. I mean, I like pickle relish on hot dogs just fine, but a two-gallon container is probably enough that I can pass some on to my heirs even if I live another twenty years.
But all this carping arises from, as Wordsworth decreed, “Emotion recollected in tranquility.” The truth is that the moment I entered the measureless cavern of Costco my brain was colonized by its Conquistaconsumadoros and I was plunged into a fugue state.
I glanced at the recommended “small televisions” and rapidly lost interest. Still, my reptile consumer brain said, “You’ve come all this way and the bargains abound around you. You have to get something. Shop, shop, shop, my precious…. your eyelids are getting heavy, your wallet is getting light….. shop…. shop…..”
In this brain-wiped state, I rolled my cart about the wasteland eating this or that small bite of a food sample offered by one person or another for whom English was neither the first, second, nor third language. All the samples were, as I imagine most of the food “bargains” were, markedly mediocre. It was as if Costco had decided to make all the food previously “Not Available in Stores” available in their stores. The idea here is that if you take a bite of “Hoosegow Chili” you incur an obligation to by a large vat of the stuff. What you can do with a vat of Hoosegow Chili, I don’t know. Maybe open up a scrotum vulcanization stand on a dark desert highway.
At some point in my trance, I must have put things in my cart although I kept wandering away and losing it, and then spending five minutes finding it again. I remember noticing, in some vague way, that the crowd and their gigantic carts were growing denser and denser as the minutes ticked away, but I did not yet understand the deeper more horrible meaning of the hordes on this particular Saturday.
Then, just as my degradation deepened, I was saved. Saved by the bell. My cell-phone rang…. loudly and vibrating at the same time. (Hard to ignore the vibrating ring in your pants.) I answered it. It was a fellow Pajamaista (who assumes that I am always in front of the screen) about a detail on the home page. He was startled when I told him I wasn’t in front of the computer and could only mumble, “I… must… shop… must… shop… must.”
He said, “Man, you’re in Costco on the Saturday before Super Bowl? Are you crazy? Flee. FLEE!”
He hung up and I found that, suddenly, I’d been slapped back into reality. And it was grim.
The horror. The horror.
I realized that I had, in my fugue state, placed myself in the back of a gigantic box-store with minor in big screen TVs and a major in massive portions of food on the Saturday before the Super Bowl.
Such a deep rung of hell is not where you want to be unless you have a burning-down football habit, which I do not. I barely know that the football, baseball, or basketball season is on; except for the fact that the basketball season is pretty much always on. (That’s the running, jumping, hanging on goalposts, very tan tall-guys game, right?) And this was before the NFL became the league of traitors, ingrates, and quislings.
How do you market yourself as a national pastime when you allow — and encourage — players to protest the flag and the national anthem that pays tribute to that flag? —
Don Surber
Still, there I was, blind and gulping like a cave fish in the deepest depths of the Costco caverns, the part back by the Topless Temple of Toilet Paper, 24 hours before kick-off, and around me countless hordes were preparing to feed even larger hordes.
I shoved my way through the cartlock around the beer and hot dogs to the center aisle where I could see, barely, the front of the store. In one horrified glance, I saw that the Superbowlers were clogging the register lanes to a depth of about 500 fathoms. A quick consultation of my check-out line algorithm determined that if I joined the line at that very moment with my cart I might reach the parking lot with my crap around the end of the April.
This is the kind of blood-simple shopping moment that makes grown men ask, “How bad do you want the stuff you’ve got?”
Hard to answer since, frankly, I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d put in the cart in the first place. A glance down into the cart let me see my shame. It seems that in my shopping daze I’d decided I needed, out of everything on offer in Costco, two large Orchid plants and eight low-energy light bulbs. I have no idea why I put them in. Perhaps because the orchid plants made it easy to spot the cart in order to put nothing else in it.
Two orchid plants and eight light bulbs in a cart at the back of Costco equals one abandoned shopping cart, and me back in the car and heading to the nearest dive bar in order to clear my mind with six tequilas, three qualudes, and a cup of ether on the rocks.
But first I called my colleague back to thank him for snapping me out of it.
As I left the parking lot I had to drive carefully between the endless hordes pushing large carts filled with mountains of mediocre food and very large television screens. There would be a lot of cooking and assembly and swearing far into the night. I wished them well.
Now I’m back online and much more interested in what’s going on today. It’s so calm here. Just me and you… and you’re pretty quiet.
Tomorrow the Superbowl Sunday kickoff will roll around and everyone who went to Costco and all the other stores yesterday will be at home for hours this afternoon. The only thing more boring than the much-touted and now utterly predictable ads will be the game itself.
Want to go shopping? I know where you can get a great deal on orchids and light bulbs this afternoon. Go and you’ll have CostCo all to yourself. Pretty much. There will be staff there and they will have all their big screens tuned to the Super Bowl. Good place to watch the game unless you’re boycotting. Free snacks up and down the echoing aisles.
Do a little more digging on its genesis. If you’ve never been to a military base PX or BX, they were the original Costco.
P.S. Don’t buy 25# of flour unless you’re going to use it up in a year or less, or a litre of Baileys unless you can drink it all in less than two years.
“BUY…. something you don’t need. Then buy some accessories for it.”
If one must succumb to this incessant earworm, one of the best places is a gun shop (Accessories? Have we got ACCESSORIES! Holsters and targets and ammo, oh my!). Then the next time the urge strikes, you can go to the firing range rather than to a store. Then back to the gun store for more ammo. Lather, rinse, repeat.
ghostsniperFebruary 3, 2018, 4:30 AM
Welcome back. shwew, narrow escape.
Superbowl? What’s that?
Never seen it. Not even 2 minutes worth, and in that 2 minute time I almost fell asleep 3 times.
How many ways can you spell B-O-R-I-N-G?
Watching 300 pound negro’s slap each other on the ass.
If nothing else it is revealing of the inner psyche of the watchers.
Off with their nutz!
A.MenFebruary 3, 2018, 5:05 AM
Will never watch anther game until the overpaid, idiots stand for America’s national anthem.
waitingForTheStormFebruary 3, 2018, 5:42 AM
I used to drive between major cities doing contract work. I was most often driving into Houston on Sunday afternoons. Super bowl Sunday: the freeways were virtually empty that day. BTW: I do not watch. There is a longish back story.
pfsmFebruary 3, 2018, 9:08 AM
Yeah, I remember one Sunday I was headed into Seattle for a car club meeting and wondered why I-5 was so empty. I didn’t think about why until I got to the meeting and discovered that a member had brought a tiny portable tv. Yep. Super Bowl Sunday.
PA CatFebruary 3, 2018, 9:19 AM
There are those of us for whom Super Bowl Sunday is just one more day in the long winter countdown to Spring Training.
Sam L.February 3, 2018, 9:50 AM
I haven’t watched one in years, and the only one I can remember watching was the Giants in NY when the ground was frozen and they wore Converse(?) sneakers.
I like my Costco.
dhmosquitoFebruary 3, 2018, 11:14 AM
I wish Costco would come to Rapid City. Ditto Chick-fil-A.
Sam’s Club is a —distant— second to Costco.
YMMV, of course.
pbirdFebruary 3, 2018, 12:04 PM
If Amazon won’t send it, I don’t need it. The very idea of going in meatspace to those places…
ghostsniperFebruary 3, 2018, 12:55 PM
pbird said meatspace
thats where nitwits are busy exchanging flu viruses and who knows what else
pbird makes sense
Super Bowl in our neck of the woods means Eagles fans will be needing their cake. So many cakes. I hate cake. In the Hyper Super Uber Box Store Bakery where I work, today was worse than the run up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. If excess is any indicator of cultural health or disease, then we are covered for that contingency as well. We have defibrillators at various points in the store.
Rob De WittFebruary 3, 2018, 1:16 PM
Meh, football. Congenital giants knocking each other down while the commentators describe a level of strategy comparable to nuclear physics.
Meanwhile…….cake? Je me don’t get it.
MMinLamesaFebruary 3, 2018, 3:28 PM
Man I like it when you get going.
Just a girlFebruary 3, 2018, 9:07 PM
Most excellent,,,that place creeps me out.
Watcher In The DarkFebruary 4, 2018, 12:14 AM
Every large retail outlet offers the observer one delight: you get to see a wide range of humanity in all its indifferent and unappealing state. You see hairstyles that would look wretched even if done properly. There are styles of clothes worn by shoppers that are jaw-droppingly inappropriate for the time and place when they aren’t a fusion of bad taste and ill-fitting craziness. Most of all you get to see and hear, close up, a sea of shambling humans showing that Darwin’s theory of evolution was wrong because in some quaters there was never any evolution.
On top of that you see what people gotta buy and you wonder what their home life is like to make those choices. But then they probably look at me and think the same, so maybe a balance is struck.
ghostsniperFebruary 4, 2018, 4:58 AM
“…styles of clothes worn by shoppers that are jaw-droppingly inappropriate for the time and place…”
======================
When I was a kid of the 60’s and lived mostly rurally we only went to “town” maybe once a week, when my mom wanted to do the grocery shopping, usually on a Fri evening. We’d hit the A&P and get a few bags and then a department store for anything else.
It was an ordeal.
There was 5 of us kids and all of us had to be spic n span.
No way we could go to town without having our good garments on, hands and faces washed, hair combed. Good garments meant long pants and button down shirt and hard shoes for the boys and a dress and hard shoes for the girls. Of course, that’s how we went to school too, and anytime we left the house.
Sometimes we’d see kids with blue jeans, or a t-shirt, or sneakers and those kids were always thought of as being downtrodden and the usual story was that the dad was a drinker and the mother was lax. Those kids were also problematic in the schools, frequently in trouble and did poorly in their schoolwork. They rarely outgrew it and counseling was never heard of. They were mostly maginalized (new millennium term) by the community.
We never ate out during those excursions though in the summer we might go to Massey’s ice cream stand in Carlisle and sit in the giant 40′ long station wagon or sit at the picnic tables and eat ice cream cones. My mom always had a hanky rolled up in her sleeve for wiping kid’s faces of sloppy ice cream, runny noses, etc. With 5 kids spread over about 8 years it seems like there was always a baby or little one in tow, so, the hanky got regular use.
The was a certain level of decorum that was adhered to and no explanation was necessary. That’s just the way it was and there was never even any consideration of anything less or diff. Same with how we behaved in public. Our behavior was groomed in private so that poor behavior was not an option when in public. It was not even possible for any of us kids to act up, break out in a bawling fit, or any of that acceptable/tolerated nonsense you see everyday now. My parents would have been humiliated and the word would have gotten around instantly in the small community of Gettysburg and the entire extended family would have suffered scorn.
The effects of bad behavior were vast, overwhelming and so terrible that it simply was not acceptable by anyone. Things were different 50 years ago and I’m not afraid to say they were better, in fact, I boldy state it. Maybe boldy should not be used. Things that are good and right are not bold, they just are.
Millie_woodsFebruary 4, 2018, 4:15 PM
I just got home from picking up a case of beans and a kayak at Costco.
Ex football fan. It’s like smoking, once you’ve really quit you never go back.
MikeFebruary 4, 2018, 4:34 PM
LOL on “…beans and a kayak”! Yannow, with a fairly minor modification you could have a self-propelled vessel there.
The original Costco was an East coast company named Basco.
What I notice about Costco is that for some reason the various cities they are in only give them one exit. So when it comes time to leave you are stuck behind people who are clueless of how to make a left hand turn. Even when all the oncoming traffic from the left is stopped trying to turn into Costco they cannot bring themselves to move out and make their left. Why can’t Costco have more than one exit?
We used to eagerly await SuperBowl Sunday. That’s when we went to the movies and parked right in front of the multiplex, front row! Of course that was back in the days when Hollywood made more than two films a year we were interested in seeing. Now it’s the day I can’t go to the pub for a beer and a burger because the F’ing TVs will be all turned to “The Game”.
A shameful admission, I live in Massachusetts, 15 miles from Foxboro Stadium. I have some younger friends, both husband and wife working their butts off to get by. So my girlfriend and I take their two boys out on excursions; fairs, whale watch, Bowling. Last month, the older boy (13) mentioned the Superbowl and asked me my opinion on which team would the Pat’s play this year. I mumbled a insincere “not sure, how about you”, he mentioned a team. Don’t remember who. Then he asked me my opinion on which team the Patriots would play at the SB the year after that.
I remarked that the Pats might not be in the Superbowl next year and he looked at me like I making a bad joke. “They’re the Patriots Man!”.
I realized that his generation grew up with a much different set of assumptions about the home team, and at some time in the future he was going to have to deal with a different reality.
Because I’m old enough that I remember the years of “Well wait till next year, this year was always supposed to be a building year!”. Neither my father or his brother lived to see a home town victory by the Patriots. When this kid is an old guy with kids of his own he’ll be boring them with “When I was your age, the Patriots didn’t ever lose. And they weren’t “The Long Island Pats”.
Never been in a Costco and don’t recall ever even seeing one.
Sounds like they’re pretty big, maybe I thought it was an airport?
RosalindJFebruary 3, 2019, 12:19 PM
I barely know that the football, baseball, or basketball season is on; except for the fact that the basketball season is pretty much always on
We would get on splendidly. I once won the pool at a superbowl game decades ago, and people were hot because I didn’t even know (or really, care) who was playing. My sports illiteracy was on full display when I simply picked an attractive looking empty square on the board.
pbirdFebruary 3, 2019, 1:24 PM
I always joke that on my tombstone I want written “I never did understand what you people cared about.”
GrayFebruary 3, 2019, 1:55 PM
ghostsniper,
Quite a bit of what you wrote resonated with me as a child of the 50’s. The A&P! That brings back memories. (When I was old enough I hustled carts and loaded bags into cars for tips at an A&P.)
I loved the “those kids were always thought of…also problematic in the schools, frequently in trouble and did poorly in their schoolwork.”
They were known for their lack of intellectual acumen; their hardest 3 years was 3rd grade. Their personal hygiene was invariably an olfactory offense. Everyone knew who the “bad crowd” was; your parents forbade you from association with such ilk. Bad apples. Funny how no one ever thinks that the good apples ever make a bad apple better, and yet some think this way about people.
“Our behavior was groomed in private so that poor behavior was not an option when in public…The effects of bad behavior were vast, overwhelming and so terrible…”
So terrible that it was nigh upon suicidal to perpetrate such. Fathers were men, and unabashedly so; he and all of his contemporaries were WWII veterans. By the time I was of school age, nothing was required except a single look from my dad. He was a mountain of a man, all 5’6″, and he was either a mountain of joy, or “mountain…that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them”.
You did not “talk back” to your parents; yes dad, or yes sir (or mom) would suffice nicely. You got “regular” haircuts in both style and frequency. You were taught the principles of courtesy, manly, and sartorial comportment. You were taught the value of learning. I remember my father pointing out men laboring heavily in the sun, digging ditches by hand. He, with no pejorative or high-handedness, told me: “get an education or get a shovel”.
None of this was anomalous; it was the cultural normal. And yes, it was good and it was better.
PA CatFebruary 3, 2019, 2:34 PM
Gray said,”Fathers were men, and unabashedly so; he and all of his contemporaries were WWII veterans.”
Yep; my dad was 82nd Airborne, WWII. I have mentioned on a previous AD thread that I grew up in a tribe of baseball fans for whom football held no interest (the tribe’s team is the Phillies, which doubtless indicates some type of hereditary cognitive dysfunction spanning at least four generations). There was, however, one exception to the care-less-about-football rule for my dad, and that is the annual game whose fight song is “On, Brave Old Army Team.” My dad couldn’t get into West Point because he was one inch short of the minimum height requirement for the corps of cadets in the 1930s, but he always thought of the Point as his school. His commanding general was “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin, USMA ’29, who was revered by the paratroopers for carrying an M1 Garand rifle in combat like the rest of the infantry instead of the carbine that officers usually carried. So yeah, I do set aside time to watch the annual Army/Navy game to honor my dad’s service as well as his memory.
Sam L.February 3, 2019, 4:09 PM
You don’t buy small TVs at Costco, Gerard; you get a 40″, an 80″, or a 120″!
Or bigger. Me, well, I won’t watch football an any size TV.
ghostsniperFebruary 3, 2019, 7:45 PM
“None of this was anomalous; it was the cultural normal. And yes, it was good and it was better.”
Remember when kids had respect for their parents?
That was way back, maybe 30-40 years ago, when parents were trying to be good parents and not “friends” to their kids.
There was always a kid or 2 that went astray, went to juvenile detention. The first thing they did was shave that kids head, made him standout, a source of ridicule among his peers. Embarrassment is a powerful inducer.
Those crying brats in the grocery store since the last 30 years? They spent all day neglected by their mother who probably stored them in a facility while she chased a dollar or a dood. Then, when she picked the kid up, hit the grocery for a bag of salad and a rotisseries chicken again, the kid had no idea who she was. He was terrified by this stranger. Dad? Who’s he? The kid doesn’t know, nor does she.
Remember when shoplifting didn’t happen? If a kid stole something dad was notified and had to pay for it. No, you don’t get to give it back, who wants used/stolen stuff? You pay for it. And the dad got a fine from the state, and his name in the paper. Crimes were less frequent then, and a big deal. When dad’s boss found out his kid was caught shoplifting he gave him a talk. “My employees don’t raise shoplifters, you understand? Consider this your last warning.”
We had play clothes and school clothes and never shall they mingle. School clothes were taken off as soon as we got home and put away. They were meant to last the whole school year. We had chores. Every. Day. even on weekends. Especially on weekends cause that was when dad wasn’t working and the boys had to help attend to that honey-do list and anything else he wanted to do. How do you think I learned about the over the top misery of lining up the splined shaft and receiver on a 1965 Chevy station wagon with a factory 327 with a 4 speed? Us 3 boys were 3 more tools in dad’s all purpose tool box. He used us like rented mules but never made us do stuff he wasn’t doing right with us, but harder. Nobody worked and sweated like me dad. He was powerful. And smart. And he didn’t talk a lot. Laconic. His actions did the talking.We learned what dad’s do by simply being in his presence. Dad wasn’t some guy that came over every other fri evning and picked us up for the weekend and lavished us with things and no discipline. He wasn’t out friend. He was our dad, the only one we’ll ever know, and to think of him as a friend would have been….weerd. My friends were my age. Not 20+ years older. On my 10th birthday Dad gave me a ten dollar bill and aked me how I wanted to spend it. I said I wanted to go to the hobby store cause plastic and balsa models were my thing then. So we went and as we walked the aisles I was putting this model car under my arm, and that model plane, and some paints and such. My next younger brother was a little put out that I was getting all this good stuff. My dad noticed and and suggested that I buy a model for my brother and I did. My dad was a teacher and he taught us boys to be men, and dad’s. All 3 of us boys succeeded. My dad was 34 when I was 10 and he spent the past 10 years as my dad. Now a days 34 year olds play video games all the time or with their phones and what percentage of them even have kids?
The same was true for my 2 sisters. Mom taught them how to be women, and mom’s by having them around her as she went about her day. Both my sisters succeeded. My sisters helped mom prepare the supper and clean up afterward and us boys and dad were called in from whatever we were doing when the supper was ready. Supper was always from scratch (there was no other way back then) and took most of the day to create. My mom was a master cook and never owned a cookbook. She fed a husband, and 5 kids everyday until they were adults, and she was always the last to sit down after serving everyone. Boy’s doing dishes? Girls getting greasy under cars? Please. The system worked. Keep your cotton pickin hands off of it. Remember when that was an ever day phrase? Now if you say it you’re a raysyss.
Remember the Twilight Zone episode named “A Stop At Willoughby”? It’s my favorite.
churchladyiowaFebruary 3, 2019, 10:12 PM
Ghost, you betcha! My German father was 45 when I was born and Mom was 38. Only sister was 16 years older than I (and she left home to get married when I was 3). Having no sons, my dad’s helper was moi. On the farm I was expected to milk three or four cows by hand, carry the milk uphill to the wash house where the separator was located and then bucket feed a few calves with skim or “separator” milk. And if my dad went fishing, that meant having to feed 150 feeder pigs, a dozen stock cows in addition to the milking. In between, were additional jobs like shoveling off a wagon load of shell corn into a granary (“and don’t spill any!”). My girlfriends thought I was the next thing to an indentured servant. This was in the late 50’s/early 60’s. Daddy’s favorite quip was “If you can work for me, you can work for anybody.” Best experience of my life.
And regarding the Sacred Super Bowl: I lucked out and married a great guy who shares my lack of interest in football, basketball or baseball. Our idea of sports is figure skating!
churchladyiowaFebruary 3, 2019, 10:18 PM
We don’t have a Costco in our town, just a Super Wal-Mart. Our town is also 75% Hispanic, Sudanese, with other lesser known extractions. At least twice a month, in the local Police Beat, are reports from Wal Mart that usually a pair of men were caught wheeling a 40″ TV to the parking lot without paying for it. Or it’s a Wal-Mart employee getting caught letting his friends check out with a cart load of electronics that don’t have a receipt.
ghostsniperFebruary 4, 2019, 4:33 AM
A guy in charge of security at a Walmart told me half of all thefts are by employees, all stores have at least 300 security cameras, and on average each store has 10 or more “employees” dressed like normal people walking around, watching you. Don’t do it.
Larry GeigerFebruary 4, 2019, 6:25 AM
AFV on ABC from 7:00 to 8:00 last night. My weekly television fix. Giggling drives my wife nuts. She goes and washes her hair. Then I call mom in Michigan and chat for about an hour. Sunday evening at the Geigers.
I broke, ,,,,,,,, last minute I turned the game on, it’s like a force took me over, made me do it!. Na, buck stops here. I’m responsible for my actions.
I’m still watching college ball, GO DUCKS!., they suck, but I have history their.
I was reading with admiration growing up country. I did, Rocklin Ca, a wonderful time, summers only had one rule, be home by dark. Out the door after feeding the animals, recovering eggs. We could wonder for miles and miles, three creeks in the area. My ” Set” of friends were the terrors of the towns.
Simple wonderful.
Thank you for the memories.
Dirk
TwoDogsFebruary 4, 2019, 3:33 PM
I made the mistake of going to our local grocery emporium (no Costcos in these parts) at 11 on Sunday morning to find the parking lot in a state of near total gridlock. Complaining to my wife later, she said “It’s Super Bowl Sunday ! What did you expect ?”
“If you don’t need it, you gotta have it.” LOL. This hit me hard on Saturday and I wasn’t even shopping. I was at a shooting match and laid out on a table were a few guns that had belonged to a late friend of the range owner. He was selling them for the widow. Nothing struck my eye except that darned Super Blackhawk .41 Magnum. I’ve been telling myself I need to pick up a single action revolver, since that’s the one major gun genre that I don’t have a single example of. But .41 Mag ? Why couldn’t it be in a caliber I already have ? Must resist. Must resist….
R DaneelFebruary 4, 2019, 8:09 PM
Costco. Well, I have been a member since it was Price Club.
Want the secret? There are things you buy you always use. That is what you get there.
TP, Kleenex, laundry soap, toothpaste, dish soap, dishwasher soap, their whole bean coffee is good, medium grain rice, the odd TV at good prices, discount books, their meat is good, charcoal (I smoke meats & BBQ).
I buy the meat and vac pack to freeze. Costco meats beat the other grocery stores in quality and price hands down around here. Charcoal goes quick in our house. Brita water filters are necessary for drinking & coffee water here in Texas. Things you use every day are what to buy.
But, there is no ambiance, that is sure.
ghostsniperFebruary 5, 2019, 1:46 PM
me and that avatar mutt would get along just fine
i can tell
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Oh, you’re so funny, Gerard!! You LOVE CostCo!
Do a little more digging on its genesis. If you’ve never been to a military base PX or BX, they were the original Costco.
P.S. Don’t buy 25# of flour unless you’re going to use it up in a year or less, or a litre of Baileys unless you can drink it all in less than two years.
“BUY…. something you don’t need. Then buy some accessories for it.”
If one must succumb to this incessant earworm, one of the best places is a gun shop (Accessories? Have we got ACCESSORIES! Holsters and targets and ammo, oh my!). Then the next time the urge strikes, you can go to the firing range rather than to a store. Then back to the gun store for more ammo. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Welcome back. shwew, narrow escape.
Superbowl? What’s that?
Never seen it. Not even 2 minutes worth, and in that 2 minute time I almost fell asleep 3 times.
How many ways can you spell B-O-R-I-N-G?
Watching 300 pound negro’s slap each other on the ass.
If nothing else it is revealing of the inner psyche of the watchers.
Off with their nutz!
Will never watch anther game until the overpaid, idiots stand for America’s national anthem.
I used to drive between major cities doing contract work. I was most often driving into Houston on Sunday afternoons. Super bowl Sunday: the freeways were virtually empty that day. BTW: I do not watch. There is a longish back story.
Yeah, I remember one Sunday I was headed into Seattle for a car club meeting and wondered why I-5 was so empty. I didn’t think about why until I got to the meeting and discovered that a member had brought a tiny portable tv. Yep. Super Bowl Sunday.
There are those of us for whom Super Bowl Sunday is just one more day in the long winter countdown to Spring Training.
I haven’t watched one in years, and the only one I can remember watching was the Giants in NY when the ground was frozen and they wore Converse(?) sneakers.
I like my Costco.
I wish Costco would come to Rapid City. Ditto Chick-fil-A.
Sam’s Club is a —distant— second to Costco.
YMMV, of course.
If Amazon won’t send it, I don’t need it. The very idea of going in meatspace to those places…
pbird said meatspace
thats where nitwits are busy exchanging flu viruses and who knows what else
pbird makes sense
Super Bowl in our neck of the woods means Eagles fans will be needing their cake. So many cakes. I hate cake. In the Hyper Super Uber Box Store Bakery where I work, today was worse than the run up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. If excess is any indicator of cultural health or disease, then we are covered for that contingency as well. We have defibrillators at various points in the store.
Meh, football. Congenital giants knocking each other down while the commentators describe a level of strategy comparable to nuclear physics.
Meanwhile…….cake? Je me don’t get it.
Man I like it when you get going.
Most excellent,,,that place creeps me out.
Every large retail outlet offers the observer one delight: you get to see a wide range of humanity in all its indifferent and unappealing state. You see hairstyles that would look wretched even if done properly. There are styles of clothes worn by shoppers that are jaw-droppingly inappropriate for the time and place when they aren’t a fusion of bad taste and ill-fitting craziness. Most of all you get to see and hear, close up, a sea of shambling humans showing that Darwin’s theory of evolution was wrong because in some quaters there was never any evolution.
On top of that you see what people gotta buy and you wonder what their home life is like to make those choices. But then they probably look at me and think the same, so maybe a balance is struck.
“…styles of clothes worn by shoppers that are jaw-droppingly inappropriate for the time and place…”
======================
When I was a kid of the 60’s and lived mostly rurally we only went to “town” maybe once a week, when my mom wanted to do the grocery shopping, usually on a Fri evening. We’d hit the A&P and get a few bags and then a department store for anything else.
It was an ordeal.
There was 5 of us kids and all of us had to be spic n span.
No way we could go to town without having our good garments on, hands and faces washed, hair combed. Good garments meant long pants and button down shirt and hard shoes for the boys and a dress and hard shoes for the girls. Of course, that’s how we went to school too, and anytime we left the house.
Sometimes we’d see kids with blue jeans, or a t-shirt, or sneakers and those kids were always thought of as being downtrodden and the usual story was that the dad was a drinker and the mother was lax. Those kids were also problematic in the schools, frequently in trouble and did poorly in their schoolwork. They rarely outgrew it and counseling was never heard of. They were mostly maginalized (new millennium term) by the community.
We never ate out during those excursions though in the summer we might go to Massey’s ice cream stand in Carlisle and sit in the giant 40′ long station wagon or sit at the picnic tables and eat ice cream cones. My mom always had a hanky rolled up in her sleeve for wiping kid’s faces of sloppy ice cream, runny noses, etc. With 5 kids spread over about 8 years it seems like there was always a baby or little one in tow, so, the hanky got regular use.
The was a certain level of decorum that was adhered to and no explanation was necessary. That’s just the way it was and there was never even any consideration of anything less or diff. Same with how we behaved in public. Our behavior was groomed in private so that poor behavior was not an option when in public. It was not even possible for any of us kids to act up, break out in a bawling fit, or any of that acceptable/tolerated nonsense you see everyday now. My parents would have been humiliated and the word would have gotten around instantly in the small community of Gettysburg and the entire extended family would have suffered scorn.
The effects of bad behavior were vast, overwhelming and so terrible that it simply was not acceptable by anyone. Things were different 50 years ago and I’m not afraid to say they were better, in fact, I boldy state it. Maybe boldy should not be used. Things that are good and right are not bold, they just are.
I just got home from picking up a case of beans and a kayak at Costco.
Ex football fan. It’s like smoking, once you’ve really quit you never go back.
LOL on “…beans and a kayak”! Yannow, with a fairly minor modification you could have a self-propelled vessel there.
Looking for something more fun than the Superbowl to watch today while eating your Cosco Cheetos?
OK, here’s the 2018, Aussie Rules football, AFL Grand Final – West Coast vs Collingwood game.
https://youtu.be/XD3Yf0Sc2sg
The original Costco was an East coast company named Basco.
What I notice about Costco is that for some reason the various cities they are in only give them one exit. So when it comes time to leave you are stuck behind people who are clueless of how to make a left hand turn. Even when all the oncoming traffic from the left is stopped trying to turn into Costco they cannot bring themselves to move out and make their left. Why can’t Costco have more than one exit?
We used to eagerly await SuperBowl Sunday. That’s when we went to the movies and parked right in front of the multiplex, front row! Of course that was back in the days when Hollywood made more than two films a year we were interested in seeing. Now it’s the day I can’t go to the pub for a beer and a burger because the F’ing TVs will be all turned to “The Game”.
A shameful admission, I live in Massachusetts, 15 miles from Foxboro Stadium. I have some younger friends, both husband and wife working their butts off to get by. So my girlfriend and I take their two boys out on excursions; fairs, whale watch, Bowling. Last month, the older boy (13) mentioned the Superbowl and asked me my opinion on which team would the Pat’s play this year. I mumbled a insincere “not sure, how about you”, he mentioned a team. Don’t remember who. Then he asked me my opinion on which team the Patriots would play at the SB the year after that.
I remarked that the Pats might not be in the Superbowl next year and he looked at me like I making a bad joke. “They’re the Patriots Man!”.
I realized that his generation grew up with a much different set of assumptions about the home team, and at some time in the future he was going to have to deal with a different reality.
Because I’m old enough that I remember the years of “Well wait till next year, this year was always supposed to be a building year!”. Neither my father or his brother lived to see a home town victory by the Patriots. When this kid is an old guy with kids of his own he’ll be boring them with “When I was your age, the Patriots didn’t ever lose. And they weren’t “The Long Island Pats”.
One word. Superbore.
Never been in a Costco and don’t recall ever even seeing one.
Sounds like they’re pretty big, maybe I thought it was an airport?
I barely know that the football, baseball, or basketball season is on; except for the fact that the basketball season is pretty much always on
We would get on splendidly. I once won the pool at a superbowl game decades ago, and people were hot because I didn’t even know (or really, care) who was playing. My sports illiteracy was on full display when I simply picked an attractive looking empty square on the board.
I always joke that on my tombstone I want written “I never did understand what you people cared about.”
ghostsniper,
Quite a bit of what you wrote resonated with me as a child of the 50’s. The A&P! That brings back memories. (When I was old enough I hustled carts and loaded bags into cars for tips at an A&P.)
I loved the “those kids were always thought of…also problematic in the schools, frequently in trouble and did poorly in their schoolwork.”
They were known for their lack of intellectual acumen; their hardest 3 years was 3rd grade. Their personal hygiene was invariably an olfactory offense. Everyone knew who the “bad crowd” was; your parents forbade you from association with such ilk. Bad apples. Funny how no one ever thinks that the good apples ever make a bad apple better, and yet some think this way about people.
“Our behavior was groomed in private so that poor behavior was not an option when in public…The effects of bad behavior were vast, overwhelming and so terrible…”
So terrible that it was nigh upon suicidal to perpetrate such. Fathers were men, and unabashedly so; he and all of his contemporaries were WWII veterans. By the time I was of school age, nothing was required except a single look from my dad. He was a mountain of a man, all 5’6″, and he was either a mountain of joy, or “mountain…that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them”.
You did not “talk back” to your parents; yes dad, or yes sir (or mom) would suffice nicely. You got “regular” haircuts in both style and frequency. You were taught the principles of courtesy, manly, and sartorial comportment. You were taught the value of learning. I remember my father pointing out men laboring heavily in the sun, digging ditches by hand. He, with no pejorative or high-handedness, told me: “get an education or get a shovel”.
None of this was anomalous; it was the cultural normal. And yes, it was good and it was better.
Gray said,”Fathers were men, and unabashedly so; he and all of his contemporaries were WWII veterans.”
Yep; my dad was 82nd Airborne, WWII. I have mentioned on a previous AD thread that I grew up in a tribe of baseball fans for whom football held no interest (the tribe’s team is the Phillies, which doubtless indicates some type of hereditary cognitive dysfunction spanning at least four generations). There was, however, one exception to the care-less-about-football rule for my dad, and that is the annual game whose fight song is “On, Brave Old Army Team.” My dad couldn’t get into West Point because he was one inch short of the minimum height requirement for the corps of cadets in the 1930s, but he always thought of the Point as his school. His commanding general was “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin, USMA ’29, who was revered by the paratroopers for carrying an M1 Garand rifle in combat like the rest of the infantry instead of the carbine that officers usually carried. So yeah, I do set aside time to watch the annual Army/Navy game to honor my dad’s service as well as his memory.
You don’t buy small TVs at Costco, Gerard; you get a 40″, an 80″, or a 120″!
Or bigger. Me, well, I won’t watch football an any size TV.
“None of this was anomalous; it was the cultural normal. And yes, it was good and it was better.”
Remember when kids had respect for their parents?
That was way back, maybe 30-40 years ago, when parents were trying to be good parents and not “friends” to their kids.
There was always a kid or 2 that went astray, went to juvenile detention. The first thing they did was shave that kids head, made him standout, a source of ridicule among his peers. Embarrassment is a powerful inducer.
Those crying brats in the grocery store since the last 30 years? They spent all day neglected by their mother who probably stored them in a facility while she chased a dollar or a dood. Then, when she picked the kid up, hit the grocery for a bag of salad and a rotisseries chicken again, the kid had no idea who she was. He was terrified by this stranger. Dad? Who’s he? The kid doesn’t know, nor does she.
Remember when shoplifting didn’t happen? If a kid stole something dad was notified and had to pay for it. No, you don’t get to give it back, who wants used/stolen stuff? You pay for it. And the dad got a fine from the state, and his name in the paper. Crimes were less frequent then, and a big deal. When dad’s boss found out his kid was caught shoplifting he gave him a talk. “My employees don’t raise shoplifters, you understand? Consider this your last warning.”
We had play clothes and school clothes and never shall they mingle. School clothes were taken off as soon as we got home and put away. They were meant to last the whole school year. We had chores. Every. Day. even on weekends. Especially on weekends cause that was when dad wasn’t working and the boys had to help attend to that honey-do list and anything else he wanted to do. How do you think I learned about the over the top misery of lining up the splined shaft and receiver on a 1965 Chevy station wagon with a factory 327 with a 4 speed? Us 3 boys were 3 more tools in dad’s all purpose tool box. He used us like rented mules but never made us do stuff he wasn’t doing right with us, but harder. Nobody worked and sweated like me dad. He was powerful. And smart. And he didn’t talk a lot. Laconic. His actions did the talking.We learned what dad’s do by simply being in his presence. Dad wasn’t some guy that came over every other fri evning and picked us up for the weekend and lavished us with things and no discipline. He wasn’t out friend. He was our dad, the only one we’ll ever know, and to think of him as a friend would have been….weerd. My friends were my age. Not 20+ years older. On my 10th birthday Dad gave me a ten dollar bill and aked me how I wanted to spend it. I said I wanted to go to the hobby store cause plastic and balsa models were my thing then. So we went and as we walked the aisles I was putting this model car under my arm, and that model plane, and some paints and such. My next younger brother was a little put out that I was getting all this good stuff. My dad noticed and and suggested that I buy a model for my brother and I did. My dad was a teacher and he taught us boys to be men, and dad’s. All 3 of us boys succeeded. My dad was 34 when I was 10 and he spent the past 10 years as my dad. Now a days 34 year olds play video games all the time or with their phones and what percentage of them even have kids?
The same was true for my 2 sisters. Mom taught them how to be women, and mom’s by having them around her as she went about her day. Both my sisters succeeded. My sisters helped mom prepare the supper and clean up afterward and us boys and dad were called in from whatever we were doing when the supper was ready. Supper was always from scratch (there was no other way back then) and took most of the day to create. My mom was a master cook and never owned a cookbook. She fed a husband, and 5 kids everyday until they were adults, and she was always the last to sit down after serving everyone. Boy’s doing dishes? Girls getting greasy under cars? Please. The system worked. Keep your cotton pickin hands off of it. Remember when that was an ever day phrase? Now if you say it you’re a raysyss.
Remember the Twilight Zone episode named “A Stop At Willoughby”? It’s my favorite.
Ghost, you betcha! My German father was 45 when I was born and Mom was 38. Only sister was 16 years older than I (and she left home to get married when I was 3). Having no sons, my dad’s helper was moi. On the farm I was expected to milk three or four cows by hand, carry the milk uphill to the wash house where the separator was located and then bucket feed a few calves with skim or “separator” milk. And if my dad went fishing, that meant having to feed 150 feeder pigs, a dozen stock cows in addition to the milking. In between, were additional jobs like shoveling off a wagon load of shell corn into a granary (“and don’t spill any!”). My girlfriends thought I was the next thing to an indentured servant. This was in the late 50’s/early 60’s. Daddy’s favorite quip was “If you can work for me, you can work for anybody.” Best experience of my life.
And regarding the Sacred Super Bowl: I lucked out and married a great guy who shares my lack of interest in football, basketball or baseball. Our idea of sports is figure skating!
We don’t have a Costco in our town, just a Super Wal-Mart. Our town is also 75% Hispanic, Sudanese, with other lesser known extractions. At least twice a month, in the local Police Beat, are reports from Wal Mart that usually a pair of men were caught wheeling a 40″ TV to the parking lot without paying for it. Or it’s a Wal-Mart employee getting caught letting his friends check out with a cart load of electronics that don’t have a receipt.
A guy in charge of security at a Walmart told me half of all thefts are by employees, all stores have at least 300 security cameras, and on average each store has 10 or more “employees” dressed like normal people walking around, watching you. Don’t do it.
AFV on ABC from 7:00 to 8:00 last night. My weekly television fix. Giggling drives my wife nuts. She goes and washes her hair. Then I call mom in Michigan and chat for about an hour. Sunday evening at the Geigers.
I broke, ,,,,,,,, last minute I turned the game on, it’s like a force took me over, made me do it!. Na, buck stops here. I’m responsible for my actions.
I’m still watching college ball, GO DUCKS!., they suck, but I have history their.
I was reading with admiration growing up country. I did, Rocklin Ca, a wonderful time, summers only had one rule, be home by dark. Out the door after feeding the animals, recovering eggs. We could wonder for miles and miles, three creeks in the area. My ” Set” of friends were the terrors of the towns.
Simple wonderful.
Thank you for the memories.
Dirk
I made the mistake of going to our local grocery emporium (no Costcos in these parts) at 11 on Sunday morning to find the parking lot in a state of near total gridlock. Complaining to my wife later, she said “It’s Super Bowl Sunday ! What did you expect ?”
“If you don’t need it, you gotta have it.” LOL. This hit me hard on Saturday and I wasn’t even shopping. I was at a shooting match and laid out on a table were a few guns that had belonged to a late friend of the range owner. He was selling them for the widow. Nothing struck my eye except that darned Super Blackhawk .41 Magnum. I’ve been telling myself I need to pick up a single action revolver, since that’s the one major gun genre that I don’t have a single example of. But .41 Mag ? Why couldn’t it be in a caliber I already have ? Must resist. Must resist….
Costco. Well, I have been a member since it was Price Club.
Want the secret? There are things you buy you always use. That is what you get there.
TP, Kleenex, laundry soap, toothpaste, dish soap, dishwasher soap, their whole bean coffee is good, medium grain rice, the odd TV at good prices, discount books, their meat is good, charcoal (I smoke meats & BBQ).
I buy the meat and vac pack to freeze. Costco meats beat the other grocery stores in quality and price hands down around here. Charcoal goes quick in our house. Brita water filters are necessary for drinking & coffee water here in Texas. Things you use every day are what to buy.
But, there is no ambiance, that is sure.
me and that avatar mutt would get along just fine
i can tell