Costco for one, please.

The other day a lady came to my place of work. That, in and of itself, is not unusual. Ladies come to my work all the time, but this time was different. This lady brought cookies and muffins. It's not every day someone comes in with cookies and muffins. I had to figure out what she wanted.

Turns out, she was selling Costco memberships to us. Previously I had been impervious to the wiles of the Costco lady, snacking on her cookies and muffins and laughing gleefully as I walked away with the extra cookie I stashed in my pocket. But, this time was different. The Costco lady came prepared.

I don't have many weaknesses, but somehow she found mine and ruthlessly exploited it. She brought free pizza coupons. NOOO!! My kryptonite is pizza. Free pizza is even more dangerous. I pretended I was paying attention to her schpeel as I munched on a cookie (macadamia nut), and acted like I was scrutinizing the coupon pack she was trying to bribe me with. Every now and then I would wipe a crumb from my face, pretending to be slightly incompetent so maybe she would stop trying to peddle her wares. No dice.

I didn't think too much of the situation as it stood. I had my cookie and wasn't interested in purchasing a Costco membership. Then, a co-worker showed up and asked the lady about renewing a membership. This was it, my opportunity to slip away, cookie in hand. I was preparing to make my exit when the Costco lady made her dastardly move. She said to my co-worker, "If you refer him (pointing to me), he'll get a free pizza and you will too."

DOOMED!

Now, my co-worker had incentive to get me to sign up and I could feel my knees starting to weaken. It was only a matter of time before I succumbed to the temptation of pizza. It wasn't fair. Suddenly, the coupon pack had much more interest to me than it did previously. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the pizza coupon sitting there on the table, inviting, enticing, and drawing me closer. I tried to resist, telling Costco lady, "I don't have my checkbook and I'm not carrying cash." I knew she didn't have a card reader with her; hopefully this ruse would buy me time and allow me to escape.

"Not to worry," she said, "you can take the application and I'll come back in two days and you can give me the check then." Curses, foiled again. I had no more defenses; I was done for. I took the application and slowly walked back to my office.

Two days later, Costco Lady showed up with my card and pizza coupon. A sudden surge of empowerment and excitement came over me. I could now buy cheap gas, bulk food, not to mention the free pizza! Could it get any better? Yes, yes it could. My co-worker decided she didn't want her free pizza, so an additional coupon came my way. Merry Christmas in January! Two pizzas for free?! It almost made up for my forgetting to snag an extra cookie a couple days before.

That very night, I decided to try out my new membership and I headed to Costco for gas. Imagine my surprise when I saw that gas wasn't any cheaper than the 7-11 down the street. And, there are no Slurpees at Costco. Rip-off. I figured it was an anomaly and that I would get some killer deals on the food. So, I went grocery shopping a couple days later. I've decided that Costco isn't the place for a single guy like myself. I now have my year's supply of oatmeal, body-wash, protein powder (more like a life supply of that stuff – blech!), instant breakfast and possibly ground beef. I needed some seasonings and a new toothbrush and toothpaste, but decided that I didn't need a metric ton of Italian Seasoning and I didn't really have anywhere to store 17 toothbrushes and 14 tubes of toothpaste. I also decided that if I had a thumb drive it would be helpful to store my school work on, so if something tragic happened to my computer (replaceable at Costco), I would at least have my work safe. Unfortunately, I couldn't buy just one thumb drive. Instead, I would have to buy anywhere from two to four thumb drives, the collective memory of which would seriously dwarf my laptop's memory.

Even though I came to the conclusion that I will probably not do my weekly grocery shopping at Costco (how in the world am I supposed to eat 16 muffins in a week?!), I still have one more pizza coupon left and it needs to be used by the end of the month. Between that and the food I already bought there, I shouldn't have to do any grocery shopping for the next little while anyway. Besides, the grocery store is typically where I like to find dates and there are just not many single girls in Costco. After all, what would they do with a gallon of mustard?