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For The Love of God, People!! They Are Hashbrowns, Not Gold Nuggets!

Being The Food Whore I really do my best work at night, as all Ladies of the Night do. So it's rare that I venture Food Meccas like Costco during the daylight hours. But today I had a crisis (ran out of bright pink Post-It Notes and printer ink) so I had to make an exception.

And ohhh what a mistake that was.

Apparently Costco is a hotbed of free food samples during the day and by all evidence I gathered today, people turn into complete and total morons when free food is offered. I mean, I knew this after my very first trick some years ago, but I never dreamed tiny little white cups filled with food would drive people to utter madness.

There I was, minding my own business checking out 5lb. buckets of yogurt when I got sucked into the current of traffic that took me into Free Food Aisle. I tried to get out but there was no turning back as the entire populace of the Peoples Republic of Costcoistan had descended into the narrow aisle-way that I forever from this point on refer to as Dead Man's Alley.

I tried to maneuver my cart to the far right so I could just peacefully make my way through when WHAM!, someone slammed into the back of my leg. I turned around to see what the Hell was going on and a crazed woman said, "I am sorry, but the hashbrowns are ready and I have been dying to try them!" And she was dead serious. She was on a mission, along with the other 7 people riding her tail to get to those damned hashbrowns.

For the love of God, people! They are hashbrowns, not gold nuggets!

I managed not to swear at her (which I thought was really big of me) and instead just try to find my way through it all when it became very clear that I was trapped between the hashbrown samples and the Boca Burger samples which were just coming out of the little toaster oven and were causing mayhem. When I realized I was trapped, a little bead of sweat started to fall down my forehead, which pissed me off because now my insanely out of control hair was going to go into full frizz mode and make me look like Marge Simpson after an hour on the treadmill. And the reason I started to sweat was because I have a dreadful case of claustrophobia - which I am sure I need therapy for but I am totally not paying some self-help guru $200 an hour to tell me I have issues with people crowding me - I already know this.

I wasn't the only one trying to get free. The man in front of me was on a mission for beer and hot dogs and had his beer but was caught short of getting his hotdogs (Hebrew national, Roy) when the first Boca Burger made it onto the bun. He got shoved into the glass doors of the cooler and turned around to look at me and I said, "Make a break for it, buddy, save yourself!"

"Fuck this shit", he said, and he grabbed his dogs and started going into full offensive mode and made a path for me to follow. (His choice of words and manly brawn have made him my new best friend.) I ended up clipping the heel of a really nice Costco employee and apologized profusely. "Don't worry about it, ma'am, this is nothing. Just hurry and go before the chocolate chip cookies are finished baking on the next aisle."

Once I was out of the aisle I took a minute to wipe my brow and recoup when I noticed people charging behind me.

Those damned cookies were done.

I soooo wanted a lemon drop by the end of my shopping trip but even I, The Food Whore, have my standards.

I totally never drink on days that don't end in "Y".
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Posted by Foodwhore at May 27, 2004 01:39 PM