Taking my Costco Virginity

Scene: Saturday at 1:00pm March 17th, 2018 --- Costco located in St. Louis Park

The parking lot is full, third time circling around to find a spot. The second time would have resulted in a parking spot had I not been cut off by a middle-age man in his Volkswagen Golf car. Finally approaching the store, a line of people flashing their Costco member card to an employee at the entrance is visible. I hope they won't notice that I am uncomfortable by the hustle and bustle of the overcrowded store. I walk in and can vaguely smell hints of hidden samples tucked away in the furthest corners of the store. I tightly grip my double wide cart as a try to dodge and weave between the upper-middle class moms and their three children who all seem to be under the age of eight. Every aisle I meander down has brightly colored products the size of my head or larger. These people do not take bulk items lightly. And by they I mean if there is a good deal, these people will get two packs of a 5 pound bag of spinach because it is on sale, even though we all know that unless they are feeding a family of ten there is no way they are going through that much food. Tempted to grab everything that seems like a good deal for the quantity you are getting, I keep having to remind myself that I don't have a storage room to put all of this stuff, but rather I am confined to a shelf on a pantry due to my current living situation, which to say the least, contains 6 roommates. As I carefully select which items to indulge in, I slowly start to feel more comfortable amongst these people. For a second, I forget that I am a college kid living off of loans and cheap bulk food that I plan on splitting with my roommates. But then, it all comes crashing down as a family of four cut in front of me in a line to get a free sample of baked cod, taking the last of the five samples because the dad took an extra. Still irritated, I pull my cart off to the side and look around me. Looking at the world created around me, I realized that I am not the target audience here. As Latour points out, the production is heavily derived from economic forces. These aisles full of family sized bags of chips and 2 pound tubs of Holy Land HummusⓇ  aren't intended for me. The forces at work are designed to make a mother of two with a large grocery list happy by filling up her kids on samples, all while saving money by buying in bulk. (She can due to her large four bedroom, three and a half bath house with a basement.) The need that Costco is focusing on isn't mine, but rather that of a middle to upper class family with a big appetite. The advertising Goodwin talks about was even more apparent to me the further I wheeled my cart into the store. Big savings on kids clothing, toys, diapers, vitamins, TVs, and jewelry were planted around the store. A vast majority of the things I was passing were either too large for me to store in my house, too bougie for me to justify buying, or not applicable to my life: i.e. anything children related. Luckily, as I was slowly wheeling my barely filled cart out of the store, the one thing that anyone can have was brightly advertised in big red letters, followed by its delicious aroma: $1.50 bratwurst, and yes I bought one.