Costco Tulips

Photos of the Day

We planted them in much the same way we bought them.  

Greedily. Recklessly.  In random order. Late in the season, last fall, we drilled their tender little bulbs into the cold ground using a power tool, of all things.   

Ruthless gardening.  And yet, here they are. . .rewarding our indifference. They survived the early rabbits, and now they rise to the sun, showered in the morning dew, lifting their faces in delicate tulip splendor.

Not bad for an impulse purchase at Costco.

Tulip bulbs in packages of fifty.  I believe we chose two or three  standing at the entrance of the store, debating should we buy them?  Sure, why not, what can we lose but an afternoon of digging in the dirt? 

Costco is my husband’s store. He shops there handily. Navigating the edges, he brings home our healthful stock of greens, fruits, nuts, berries, fish, butter, eggs. 

On the occasions when I accompany him, my grocery shopping habit swings wildly out of control, skews to impulsive and exuberant decisions. Yes, there’s always the practicality of the 24-roll bundle of toilet paper. But in what state of mind does anyone shop when the choices are everything and anything from a casket to a diamond watch to 50-ounce jar of peanut butter? 

For me, shopping at Costco is an exercise in damage control.  My simple rule -  to buy only what I “need” and only what I can carry out with both arms - doesn’t apply here.  

Perhaps it’s because I suffer from RADHD: retail attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.  The breadth and heft of the shopping carts, the length of the aisles,  the height of the ceiling, the sheer acreage of the store, and the commotion of the traffic, all put me into a state of hyperkinetic distraction. 

Like a mouse in the cupboard, I stand in the cereal aisle, nose twitching. 

With indiscretion, I sample freely: tidbits of cheesecake and runny macaroni salad offered in tiny paper cups with diminutive plastic spoons. Shamelessly,  I finger bits of soggy pepperoni pizza and crackers smeared with questionable dips. . . with no intent of purchase.

Rutterless, I drift into the wine section to study labels on the bottles. I wander through the overstock of books, page through the Harry Potter remainders, wondering who reads this stuff anyway.  

I am Costco’s best kind of customer.  Aimless and defenseless. 

I banish the thought of buying a roller-cooler.  I resist the impulse to lie down for a nap on the Memory Foam Mattress King. Instead I march down the candy aisle on a mission to find Ghiradelli Chocolate Squares. With no such luck. 

Like Ferdinand the bull, I tune out the raging Costco arena to stop and smell the roses at the aisle before checkout. I throw my bouquet into the cart, one more impulse decision to go with the the industrial-strength quantity of aspirin, 40-count AA battery pack and bag of rock-hard avocados.  

In line, in the clatter of baskets and cash registers and children clamoring for lunch, I observe how we have filled our carts to the brimming as though we were about to cross the prairie in covered wagons, as if Costco were our last outpost for food and supplies,  the final stop before the end of civilization as we know it.

With revenues of $89 billion, Costco has 600 warehouses and 433 stores across the US with more than 65 million card-carrying members.  I confess to being one of them . . . a hunter, a gatherer, a distracted shopper, shopping in reckless abandon, taking occasional creature comfort  . . . in the tulips. 

You can learn a lot of things from the tulips

All in a golden afternoon

Tulip finale, blown out in the storm last night.

Bird interrupted. Flown from the nest too early.  Nature can be cruel. 

 Location, location, location!  Bird-brained nesting property value plummeting. 

Photos: VHenoch

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