What is it about Costco that could lure a man of taste and discretion into its vulgar and grotesque circus of obscenely super-sized items? It’s a place where hundreds of thousands of square feet are devoted to the sale of big bulky sizes to people of big bulky size.

Here are four foot wide plasma screen TV’s, size 48 men’s Wranglers, 8 romaine lettuces in one plastic package, four gallons of milk, 4 gallon glass jars of Santa Barbara olives stuffed with pimentos, two pounds of sliced Swiss Cheese, 72 Louisiana jumbo shrimp (probably caught on the flooded streets of the lower 9th Ward), 48 Eggo Waffles in one box, 8 foot long leather sofas, 1000 Excedrin, 128 ounces of Nexis shampoo, 48 jumbo tampons, 500 DHEA testosterone inducing pills…..a pharmacy, a pizza stand, a bakery, garages to service your car, a travel agency, a carpet and blinds store and photo development.

The answer is that you “save money”. Yeah, right. If you buy only five items, you are going to spend around $50 because nothing comes in a small individual size. You cannot buy just one paper towel, you must buy eight or twelve or twenty-four. If you are a family, buying groceries for the “week” you might spend as much as $150-$300. Maybe this fits into the budget of folks who pay for everything with a wad of cash–but for every other American on credit, Costco is a fool’s paradise rip-off worse than Las Vegas.

Costco is full of mostly polite and helpful workers when you can locate them. Apparantly, they are paid well with nice benefits…as compared to the international sweatshop known as Wal-Mart.

Politeness is also in the air at my bank: Washington Mutual. They are becoming even more customer friendly. Bank tellers who have never met me, total strangers that is, will say, “Is that all I can for you Andrew?”
How about addressing me by calling me “Mr. Last Name”. This obnoxious, and seemingly Californian habit of using the first name for a restaurant reservation or when servicing a client, is an example of our low brow rudeness and misguided friendly informality. We do not become more caring by invading the space of others by addressing them by their first name. Titles are courteous, and engender respect and some objective distance between two persons. In the military they will only answer, “Yes, sir!” and could be court marshaled for answering anything else. When reporters question President Bush they don’t say, “Hey, George…what do you think about…..?”

Many Americans call the French rude. If you can find a place in France where total strangers call each other by their first names, send me an address and I will fly across the ocean to document it for myself. In California, the kewl culture of kiddieland infects and degrades adulthood.