They were sold out of Ahi tuna at Costco. I didn’t realize that just like deep-sea fishing you have to start out very early or the Ahi has moved on. Deep inside the warehouse, portable fry pans were giving birth to bite sized edibles.
The sample servers looked like lab techs in their snappy opaque gloves. The first sample was crab dip served on a buttery cracker. There was no real crab flavor, but I could definitely identify lots of grease product. I figured they could call it crab dip because during shipment it came over a body of water where crabs live. For the most part I ignored the samples. There was that one time I lost control with raviolis. I had been off of carbs, and the pillowy pockets of bliss stole my sanity. But something was different on this trip, I had become what I disliked. A crazed Costco sampler, aka: My Mother.
“Hey wanna do a quick Costco run?” —Mom’s favorite query. The notion of quick when you are talking about a warehouse o’ food, where the parking lot and checkout lines are both super-sized, is ridiculous. When I shop with her, a glimpse of a pleated paper cup can put her in a trance and take us off our shopping course.
On this day I was alone and I had slipped over to the dark side, my Winnebago Costco cart was empty except for the crumpled up remnants of my nibbles. I knew that eating and not buying was wrong. I looked down at the mobi
