I Want to Live Like Costco People

I resisted the siren song of Costco for much of my adult life. This has increasingly made me feel like an anomaly: it is the third-largest retailer in the world, with an estimated 30% of Americans over the age of 18 holding membership cards. And this cultural penetration is amplified in certain regions. The Pacific Northwest is Costco country. The city of Kirkland, Washington, of Kirkland Signature brand fame, is around half an hour from my hometown of Tacoma, and there are no fewer than eight Costco locations within a short drive of the city of Portland, Oregon, where I live now. Maybe it was turning 40, or buying a house, or doing any number of the rites of middle-life passage (microdosing psychedelics, getting into jam bands, establishing a primary care physician) that have marched me inexorably toward the great parking lot of dreams. I am now, for the first time in my life, a card-carrying, dues-paying Costco member. There’s no distance left to run.