Costco – A Shopping Paradise

Is there anywhere else in Canada as wonderful to shop at as a Costco? I’m mean really, it is a shopping paradise. Especially on a hot summer afternoon and your kids are cranky from the heat and bored of every single toy they own you feel like you are about to lose your mind.

Costco. What a dream. At the entrance is a food service place where people stand around like hogs in a barn getting fattened up for slaughter. Poutine, (poutine-light is fries without the cheese curds and gravy), hotdogs and soda for a buck fifty, pizza with enough meat on it to kill a bear in hibernation, and ice cream. Ice cream cones or ice cream in a cup with berry-like product poured over top by a wonderfully kind person who probably dreams of seeing one of the hogs fall over dead in the feeding lot. Paradise.

But hold-on. You don’t even have to buy food at the feedlot entrance! They give it to you for FREE as you are aimlessly walking around the store! FREE!!

Today for example, after school I took my darling little ones to Costco to kill time and to keep me from completely losing my mind. A strategic thing to do when entering Costco is to immediately throw at least one massive item in your cart. You don’t want anything too heavy because that would be a lot of effort to push around a tire or something like that. Today I placed a monster sized package of ass-wipe in the buggy so that it didn’t look like I was just wandering aimlessly around the Costco like a homeless man with two homeless daughters.

Once we had our cart looking legit we proceeded over to the food retailing end of the Costco warehouse and began cruising the buffet. Meatballs were our first option. Three please! (Ironically they were so yummy and light tasting that I bought a bag of them!).

Across the aisle to get a piece of pita bread with olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic reduction. Lovely!

The pickled seaweed salad was not a hit.

Up the row to get a drink of Kirkland cranberry-raspberry cocktail and there is a woman with a tray of sausage chunks! A couple of those and you have your sodium quotient for the day. Done.

A little sweet would be good about now so the lady giving away Bearclaws is in order. Nice. A little Greek-style yogurt? Why yes, thank you!!

Ah, a chunk of aged cheddar! Three please. When the kids say, “Daddy I don’t like that kind of cheese” you quietly hiss in their ear to keep quiet because this is YOUR favourite cheese.

And then the best part, for ten bucks you can get an entire pizza to take home!!

A five cheese pizza for ten bucks? Count me in. You can extend the good times to your return home!

With summer fast approaching and long days at home with my wonderful children you can expect me to be spending many long and wonderful afternoons in our local Costco.

Who needs camps when there are Costco stores located all across Metro Vancouver like beacons of hope.

In fact, just to change things up a bit I may get really exotic and go to a Costco in a neighbouring community.

In September when the kids go back to school and they have to write a blurb about what they did this summer, don’t be surprised if they write about long afternoons spent wandering around Costco.