ahream

In case you were thinking about going to the Westside Los Angeles Costco at four o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday – Don’t. Really.

I have no hard data on this, but I’m 99.7% sure the Westside Costco is the origin of chaos theory. It’s where all the stuff that gets sucked into the Bermuda Triangle goes. It is rush hour on the 405, and Christmas Eve at Macy’s all rolled into one hellish ball of consumerism.

It does things to people. My husband’s nickname for years has been Baby Buddha for his ability to remain calm in the face of nearly any daily indignity or monstrous catastrophe, including family holidays. But even he has had his shopping cart privileges revoked at the Westside Costco. He becomes so enraged by the throngs of people darting out in front of him, stopping in the middle of aisles and running over his heels that years of false serenity melt away in a transformation scene worthy of the Incredible Hulk.

But hey, who goes to Costco in the middle of the afternoon on Monday, right?

Turns out Monday is sample day. It’s also the day where the tour buses from every rest home in the county pull up and dump their residents to spend four hours gumming sample-size cups of bacon and debating the merits of bulk fiber supplements.

You haven’t lived until you’ve been mowed down by a 110-year-old woman pushing an industrial-sized flatbed cart loaded up with eighty pounds of frozen chicken, a plasma TV and her walker.

Sometimes, I try to avoid the shopping cart crush by carrying my purchases, the Bruce Lee theory of warehouse shopping. “Be water, my friend.” Flow between the aisles, a gurgling brook amongst the traffic, a river betwixt the crowds.

Ya well, water never had to carry a 32-can case of Diet Dr Pepper, two gallons of milk and a gross of 100-calorie pack Oreos. (Hey, a girl has to eat.)

It becomes less of a flow and more of a crashing assault, particularly when one of the demolition-derby grandmas picks up some speed on those slick concrete floors and doesn’t quite make her turn.

Note to self: elbow pads.

ahream Dispatches from the City of Angels I'm a mystery writer living in and writing about Los Angeles. You can catch my short story, "Running Venice," in the new anthology LAndmarked for Murder. Look for it in bookstores and on Amazon.com now. In the meantime, feel free to poke around. Over at my website you can find even more blog entries than I could fit here, as well as a few other ramblings. Enjoy and come back often.
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