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Imagine running to Costco for a few necessary household items -- paper towels, dog food, a 500-pack of garbage bags -- and returning with a baby grand piano. It seems an unlikely commodity in a warehouse full of more prosaic ones, but it is possible: In fact, I stood in front of that piano and considered how much more exciting my life would be -- or would look -- if it were in my living room. I began assembling a guest list for my next dinner party, but fortunately I snapped out of it before inviting too many people. And though I don't think the piano's brand name was "Impulsario," I'm thinking of sending the manufacturer a letter of suggestion to that end.
Buying a baby grand piano on impulse -- with a price tag of, I kid you not, $23,000 -- isn't one of the stranger asterisks in Costco buying adventures. This is because you never know what you're going to buy when you go and are thus prepared to buy almost anything once you get there. Part of this mentality might stem from post-traumatic parking lot syndrome, a condition in which you're so grateful to have found a parking space in the same town as the store that you enter in an altered state of retail euphoria. This absolves you of responsibility for most ill-advised purchases -- like baby grand pianos.
The economy is still depressed and consumers are still scared. Hatches have been battened down and belts tightened. We're worried about keeping a roof above our head, so what do we do? We buy more stuff than could ever fit beneath it.
My buying behavior in Costco is completely different from that of other stores. For example, I've never gone into a supermarket to buy a roast chicken and walked out instead with a flat-screen TV. And though I'm fairly certain I'd buy a piano with more deliberation than I'd give a pack of gum, I have found myself inexplicably drawn to buying items at Costco with very little forethought.
During my last foray I decided I couldn't live without an infrared thermometer gun, even though I never knew such a thing existed until the moment I saw it. At a price of only $50 and with the pull of a trigger, it accurately measures air temperatures in every nook and cranny of one's home. How had I managed for so long without one? Thrilled with my greatest-thing-since-sliced-bread gadget, I grabbed one more and tossed them in my oversized cart.
At Costco, where prices are reasonable, choices staggering and products enormous, it's easy to get swept up in the cost-cut frenzy. After my infrared thermometer gun find, I wandered down an aisle of faux Stickley furniture (located near a 12-foot stack of gummy worms and between the best-selling books and exercise machine aisles). The retail feng shui conceit must be that after you've worked out on the all-in-one-elliptical/body-sculpting machine, you'll want to plop on your Stickley couch with the latest Nicholas Sparks novella and munch on a gross of fruity candy. After giving it way too much thought, I remembered I had plenty of furniture and decided against putting a couch into the cart even though it probably would have fit.
I headed toward produce but didn't get far before I spotted a middle-aged couple, who, in a Brangelina-like fashion statement, donned matching Navy blue Kirkland sweat suits with the price tags still attached. Each had commandeered their own cart; the woman's contained a 5-foot-tall ficus tree, uncountable trays of muffins and three infrared thermometer guns. The man's cart held six barrel-sized jugs of Hellmann's mayonnaise. I scanned for matching jugs of relish, assuming he was making tartar sauce in bulk. Should I buy some, too? Shouldn't everyone have lots of condiments, particularly in this economy? The woman noticed me staring at the cart and very graciously said, "You just can't have too much Hellman's!" I nodded emphatically and heaved a jug into my cart.
Heading toward produce, I got sidetracked by a tower of Honey Nut Cheerios, my son's favorite breakfast cereal. I tried grabbing a box but couldn't get my hand around it because it was actually FOUR boxes bound to each other with invisible tape. And though he's allegedly smart, I was afraid he'd react to a bottomless pit of puffed sugar the way a goldfish would to a jar of food dumped in its tank. Then again, shouldn't I have mass reserves of food, just in case? I tossed it into my cart, feeling safer already.
Another critical purchase, I thought as I rounded a football field-long aisle, was a 20-pack of Glide dental floss. What better way to encourage a family's dental health than dedicating 2,000 yards of Gortex-enhanced thread to each member? I lowered the massive package to eye level: $40. Forty dollars? Was I mad? There was enough floss in that industrial-strength pack (if I could claw and bite my way through the impossible-to-open plastic casing) to stanch gingivitis in a small nation. But will we be able to afford dental floss if Greece's economy doesn't pick up? I wasn't about to play hygiene roulette with my family's dental future, so in went the floss.
I stared into the depths of my cart: mayonnaise, infrared thermometer guns, cereal and dental floss. The anxiety I hadn't had when I'd arrived had now spread to my extremities. What did my panic mean? Was my bulk-oriented shopping a manifestation of preparing for the worst? I was queasy with the realization that extraneous buying might be part of the problem itself.
I didn't really believe two years' worth of tartar sauce would protect my family from economic Armageddon, so I surreptitiously abandoned the mayonnaise (on a low shelf in the beverages aisle) and headed toward the checkout line. Gaining speed, I ditched the cereal and dental floss (on top of a sock pile), then "lost" the thermometer guns (on a display of pastel-colored women's bathrobes). Finally, I parted with the cart and marched empty-handed towards the exit. But there was something blocking my retreat: Brangelina was overseeing a crew of employees negotiating a mammoth box out the door.
It was the baby grand piano.
Would they put it near the ficus? Maybe they were planning a dinner party. If so, muffins and mayonnaise would be on the menu and the house temperature would be just right.
I hopped in the car and headed straight to Stew Leonard's.
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