Suburban Adventures

Today I got to see something I’d only heard rumors about, something that I was sure didn’t really exist, except maybe on Black Friday. But alas, there I was standing in line to get into Costco right with the opening bell at 9:30am on a Saturday. We arrived at 9:28 so we could secure the all important easy access parking spot and then grabbed a cart and waited in a queue that looked like complete disarray and reminded me of the “Parisian wedge”. I looked around and saw that young and old had gathered for their Saturday morning foray and desire to beat the dreaded Costco crowd.

Now let me tell you, if you’ve never been to a Costco in the suburbs on a Saturday or Sunday, take my word for it and don’t go. The aisles are full of people who’ve come to buy 5 lb mayonnaise jars and sample the chicken salad being offered up, pretending like they were really considering buying the 20 cans of chicken over their trusty ol’ friend: canned tuna. And if that’s not enough, the checkout line gets so long that no matter how much you were looking forward to the 20 muffins you bought or the 5 dozen eggs sitting in your cart, you’re tempted to just run away screaming and buy everything in semi-normal sizes at your local Safeway or Dominick’s.

Coming at 9:30am doesn’t sound so crazy now, does it?

I could see people arriving, with their Starbucks in hand, ready to tackle the shopping adventure that awaited. Some people came alone, others as couples and others even brought their children. At 9:33, when we still stood in the midst of a wedge, I heard a loud pounding. Apparently, one man had gotten so annoyed that Costco was not yet open (an entire 3 minutes behind schedule) that he decided to knock and remind them that there were people waiting.

As the gates began to open, the wedge condensed and people began trying to outmaneuver each other, because surely this had become a race. I saw a woman next to me, clutching her giant 2-pack of mustard, and trying to find some way to beat everyone inside and into the return line. Yes, she was there to return a giant 2-pack of mustard. Maybe she had come to her senses and realized that it would take her an entire lifetime to get through those 2 bottles, or maybe they were defective somehow. A part of me wanted to ask, but the more “rational” part yelled that I must focus on the line and not letting late-comers cut in.

And so, if you’re curious what it’s like to live in the ‘burbs, now you have a lovely picture and a practical suggestion: go to Costco early and you too may find a little bit of entertainment!

Back to blogging!

I’ve decided to continue my blog. Why you ask? While I’d like to say that this is due to popular demand, I’m fairly certain that my only true ‘follower’ the last time around was my mom, so that’s not really a valid excuse. So I’ll just go with wanting to document anything and everything mildly amusing in my life. I’m not sure that it’ll be nearly as interesting and captivating as my commentary on all things French and Parisian, but life in the suburbs has got to be somewhat amusing, right?

For those of you not in the know, I recently moved to the DC area (Rockville, MD to be exact) to stay with my parents until I figure out what my next endeavor will be. I decided that given the amount of “crap” I’ve managed to accumulate in 2 short years and my desire to see the countryside, I would drive from Chicago to Rockville: a 12 hour 11 minute trip that I broke up in 2 days. I looked up the car prices and given the amount of stuff I would have to pack up, realized that I would need either an SUV or a minivan to be able to transport it all. However, who in their right mind really wants to drive a minivan? So I quickly settled on an SUV.

However, when I showed up at the Thrifty counter at Midway, the clerk looked at me, looked at his cars and I could immediately tell that my trip would not start off well. He didn’t have an SUV for me, but upon learning that I was moving my stuff 680 miles, he offered me “the perfect solution”… a Dodge Caravan a.k.a. my nightmare: a minivan. No, I don’t think that nightmare is the right way to describe it. In fact, a nightmare seems light and fluffy compared to this. This was more like my own personal version of hell, or hell freezing over? No, more like an ice age hitting hell. Now, maybe this was the perfect solution, because in reality I actually would have needed to accumulate twice as much stuff to have filled the car up, but it was a minivan, and in my world, minivans are horrific inventions full of loud children that are driven by soccer moms at 50 mph on the freeway (in a 65mph zone).

I took a deep breath and got behind the wheel of this animal and decided that really it couldn’t be so bad. In fact, I have to say that the car itself was not so bad and drove quite nicely with me often catching myself nearing 90 mph. However, the one thing that I was quite amused by was the camaraderie that Caravan drivers seem to feel for one-another and the hatred that other people feel for this car (me included).

Now, maybe it was the fact that at my speed it’s really hard to compete, but even when I did slow down, other Caravans would not pass me. They would get behind me and ride my happy speeding wave. The creepiest moment though, was when, another Caravan driver actually waved to me. Yeah, seriously, he waved. I think if ever there was a case for Caravan drivers being weird, that would be the cherry on top.
However, I will say that other people are quite mean to Caravan drivers. Even when I was going 80 + mph, people would still give me dirty looks. Now, maybe soccer moms in the left lane going 50 mph might deserve a dirty look or five, but me, in the right lane, cruising along at 80… I think not! Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to pass Caravan drivers and have no interest in ever owning one of these things no matter how decently it happens to drive, but it does make for amusing observations.