Costco: A Lament | Blog: A Resurrection

Dear Costco,

When Creighton Barrel and I signed on for Costco, I was excited.  After living in Haiti where grocery shopping was an all-day affair of inflated prices, sore backs, and the best radio in the world, walking into a Costco there were angelic choruses.  The low prices!  The bulk toilet paper!  The samples of organic quinoa chips and skinny popcorn and meatballs!  And then, upon checkout, I gulped as I spent $100+ on granola, yogurt, coffee, toilet paper, and beer.  Those are the things I go to Costco for.  Ignore the hanging prepositional phrase above…

I USED to buy the CPK BBQ Chicken Pizzas.  Three pizzas for $5.99.  They were delicious and a staple "I'm tired of cooking" meal in the first months of being married.  Then, one day, they were gone. Every other week I would walk past the frozen pizzas, let down a little less each time as I realized things come and go in Costco.

But then the unimaginable happened.  Last week I marched my circle around the periphery.  Skipped the beer, granola, and toilet paper, grabbed my coffee, and turned to the yogurt.  There's the Mountain yogurt, there's the Fage Plain Greek Yogurt, the Gogurts, the Chobani small cups, and the…

THE FAGE VANILLA GREEK YOGURT WAS GONE.

It must have been a mistake.  Why would you get rid of something so lucrative?  Don't tell me you didn't get enough business out of it.  Your sales lady politely reminded me I have spent OVER $3,000 in the past 10 months in your store (and therefore should upgrade our membership to platinum president boss status).  You know what most of that is on?  The VANILLA greek yogurt.  Because it's the best.  It's not artificially vanilla-y.  It doesn't smell like C Diff like Chobani does.  It comes in a multi-serving container because those tiny individual cups aren't enough for my smoothies.  It's versatile in taste, so we can have it with granola or with strawberry, PB and oatmeal smoothies.  Or with spinach.  Or, or, or…

Sigh.

I just don't know why to keep our membership at this point.  I can't trust you anymore Costco.  I've almost converted my entire grocery list to Aldi, and if it weren't for granola and coffee, I wouldn't even need you.  Remember last fall when you changed the granola to apple cinnamon??  I do.  It threw our breakfast hours into a tailspin.  Just when we got used to it, you switched it back.  What gives?

Maybe I can make my own vanilla yogurt out of the Fage plain yogurt.  I'll look into it.  The result will decide whether we become full-blown Aldi converts or adapt to cautious Costco patrons.

Sincerely,
Sarah Barrel

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In other news, it was time for a revisit to this little piece of the internet that I have severely neglected.  Since I last wrote, I got hitched, adopted the best dog in the world, started graduate school, started counseling and will probably never stop, and am soon approaching living in the same place for an entire year.  That's a first since I was 17, and I am intending on staying put for at least one more.  It feels good to live life at the Palms with Creighton and Boomer.