surfing: brand x

1999 september 08

bulk

gods, give me the strength to keep the purse strings closed.

gene and i are going to costco tonight. they must pump something into the air because whenever we make the trek to the warehouse, we end up leaving with all manner of things we would never ever, in a million years never, think about buying under any other circumstances. a giant box of italian ice in tubes, 96 potstickers, four loaves of exotic breads in paper bags not plastic thereby guaranteeing they will go stale the minute we leave the store, miniature quiches.

i try to resist. before we leave the house i open the too small refrigerator and see how much room we don't have for anything, check the freezer and see there is even less room, look in the cupboards and see we can fit maybe three cans of tuna, but not twelve. doesn't help.

i make lists. here is tonight's: cigarettes, cat food, toilet paper, rice. simple enough, four things, we can run in and grab just four things, right?

tomorrow i will give you the list of what we actually bought; want to bet it will be more than four items long?

maybe if i leave the credit cards at home. i think that is part of the problem. i never whip out the old visa at the regular grocery store; for some reason it makes me feel like an idiot to buy my milk on credit, but i have no such compunctions at costco. cart too full? out comes the discover card. just buying one thing? it's easier to swipe the card than write a check and lord knows i never have any cash in the wallet. and it doesn't seem so wrong to charge something that inevitably comes in a box big enough to make me groan under its weight.

and i won't sample any of the expensive little food things they use to entice me. i would never have spent fifteen dollars on lobster ravioli if i hadn't tasted them. come to think of it, that's how we ended up with the italian ice. the stuff is wonderful but it is a special occasion food, not an everyday food, and now the box of them is eating up about a quarter of my freezer space.

maybe i should just give it up and buy a huge new refrigerator and a giant stand alone freezer. i'd be poorer but at least i'd have room for everything.

someone has obviously put maxfield parrish on the area payroll again.

late afternoons and early mornings have been suffused with that golden light that makes everything seem a little bit like a fairy tale, even office buildings.

but i'm sure i can eat a giant container of shortbread cookies before i get sick of them or they go stale, claire

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