Went to Sam’s Club with my mother today. Sam’s Club, for those not familiar, is a subscription version of Wal-Mart, where people pay a yearly fee to be able to wander the gargantuan aisles, filled with trampolines, frozen giant shrimp, paperpack books, jewelry, jean jackets, pork roasts, and packages of toilet paper the size of a Buick. Everything is in massive quantities, stacked up inside the airplane-hangar-sized building like so much consumerist cordwood.
My mother, of course, goes there to get one item, and stands in line alongside people who are pushing giant double-sized flat-bottom carts, like the ones they use on the loading dock at the airport. Then you box up your own purchases, and get “checked-out” again at the door to make sure you aren’t carrying, oh, 40 pounds of frozen hamburger patties in your coat.
Usually when I go there, I just marvel at the culture that has created a place like this. But in my current grumpy-old-man mode, it made me almost physically ill to see all these people jockeying for position as they consumed massive quantities of a bunch of processed food and other junk they don’t need. Is this all there is?
Your mother drug you to Sams? You poor, poor thing. My mother once made me go to that store with her. She spent hours in that consumer hell and she isn’t even a member. I didn’t speak to her for days after, I was so pissed.
I go to Sam’s all the time. It’s cool. They sometimes have some pretty good deals. I even bought a chest freezer so that I could store all the frozen food that I buy. I am mass-consumer. Hear me roar.
I should have had you pick up a 9 gallon jar of pickle relish and a bushel of pretzels for me. I haven’t been to Sams in ages – no desire to either.
Sam’s is great…if, for your perfect event, you need 80 steaks.
Sam’s? Bah. Costco (nee Price Club) is a much better warehouse store.
But, seriously, we find better deals shopping there than at the local Safeway, and it’s great for the catering work my wife does, and where else can you find 5# bags of M&Ms?