Hoarding For The Afterlife

Last week my ailing, overworked paper shredder took its final breath and ascended to shredder heaven. When I brought it home from Sam's Club three years ago, I dubbed the Royal MX-150 "R2-D2." It was large, it had wheels, and it reminded me of something out of Starwars. During his last painful days I tried to baby R2 by feeding only 3 sheets into his hopper at once, rather than the maximum rated 15 sheets. R2's last meal was unceremonious; he simply stopped eating and died.

Sam's Club is owned by the Walton family, the same folks responsible for the Walmartization of America. When Sam Walton was alive, he built Wal-Mart's reputation on the "Made in America" concept. After Sam died and the rest of the Walton clan assumed the helm, Wal-Mart came to represent everything that's wrong with America. I avoid shopping at Wal-Mart, simply because I believe Wal-Mart is bad for this country. In addition to flooding landfills with inferior goods manufactured in overseas sweatshops by underpaid workers laboring in deplorable conditions, Wal-Mart's employment practices impose costs on society here at home. The low wages paid to employees make it necessary for the government to subsidize earnings. With an average hourly wage of less than $9/hr. (starting wages are as low as $6.25/hr. for cashiers), a full-time (34-hour/week) Wal-Mart employee makes less than $16,000 per year, well below the poverty threshold of $20,000. One study suggests that raising prices by a half cent per dollar would add $1,800 to each employee's annual earnings. In other words, $2 items would cost $2.01, and $20 items would cost $20.10. Imagine what a nickel increase could do.

The world's largest retailer routinely reports quarterly profits of more than $3 billion dollars. The five Walton family partners, each worth more than $15 billion, appear on the Forbes list of America's wealthiest people, occupying five of the top eleven spots. Their combined fortune of over $77 billion makes the Walton family worth more than than Bill Gates, the richest man in the U.S., whose net worth is $53 billion.

Research suggests that Wal-Mart discriminates against women and favors men in managerial positions. And then there's Wal-Mart's systematic and strategic annihilation of "Mom and Pop" stores, as well as medium-sized businesses, but I won't get into that lest I be branded anti-American and an enemy of capitalism, neither of which accurately describe my political leanings. But that's another blog post.

When my Sam's card expired in 2006, I decided to take a stand, speak my truth, and let my membership lapse. To be honest, we only kept the membership alive in Florida ("the hurricane years") because of Sam's succulent rotisserie chicken. But I have to admit, when my time at Sam's was up, I missed the joy of pushing an oversized cart through oversized aisles stacked 30 feet high with oversized grocery items. I missed the opportunity to buy a gallon of mayonnaise or 12 jars of pickle relish. I missed the challenge of figuring out where to store 48 rolls of bathroom tissue in a 1200 square foot house. I missed the euphoria of the wholesale buying club experience.

Costco has several locations in Albuquerque. The closest store is directly across the street from Sam's Club, not ten minutes from my house. I made a beeline for Costco when R2-D2 bit the dust. After an initial exploratory pass to scout out All The Oversized Things I Need From Costco, I rushed back to the service desk to sign up. A half hour later, I was making my way to the car with a cart piled so full I could neither steer nor see around it. Maneuvering the behemoth to the car, I distracted myself realizing I'd broken even on my $50 annual membership fee during this, my very first, Costco shopping spree. Not only did I replace and upgrade my paper shredder, I bought a one terabyte RAID drive (there can never be too many gigabytes of storage), a book of photos of Albuquerque (in case I decide to never leave my house and forget what the city looks like), a map book (in case I get lost on the way home), and a case of water with 10 bonus bottles (in case I become suddenly dehydrated - you never know). I came to Costco to spend $150 on just one item, but forked over nearly $600 at the checkout. My purchases seemed justified, however, and I cheered myself tallying all the cash I saved.

Yesterday I went back to Costco to buy some food for Abbey, who's been ill and unable to shop for herself. Proudly flashing my new Costco card bearing a tiny, pixelated black and white photo of me that looks like someone else, I entered the store behind a sea of slowly moving carts commandeered by slowly moving people. A palpable, hypnotic spell blankets shoppers entering a wholesale buying club like Costco. The sheer enormity of the store alone is enough to send me reeling, but it's the lure of shiny goods parked near the doors that grabs me by the scruff of the neck and shakes bills from my wallet, beckoning me to explore every aisle for bargains. Giant bags of Milano cookies, a 25 pound slab of cheddar, a bag of spinach large enough to hold a small child, a BBQ grill the size of Rhode Island, a 900 inch HDTV, brownie mix for 10 dozen brownies, a gallon of mango salsa--this is the magic of shopping at Costco. This is the essence of the Big Box Warehouse experience. This is the overpowering intoxication that comes from saving money. Bigger, apparently, is better.

There's only one problem. Shopping at Costco, particularly in the grocery department, assumes (1) you're shopping for a family of 12 or an entire Boy Scout Troop; (2) you own a warehouse in which to store your cases of tuna, chicken broth and dishwashing detergent, not to mention a meatlocker for your 20 pounds of hamburger, 10 pounds of bacon and 36 boneless chicken breasts; (3) you're catering a cocktail party for 120; (4) you've invited either the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or the entire U.S. Marine Corps to brunch; or (5) you're stocking a fallout shelter with two years' worth of survival rations. (That's the hook for me--be prepared: you never know when the world will end or stores will mysteriously run out of food.) Those who don't meet the above criteria should carefully consider the wisdom of buying ridiculously large portions in order to save a few sheckels. If you're like me, you'll find any excuse to leave the store with ginormous bags of frozen goodies figuring if it's frozen, it won't go bad before you can eat it. You open the freezer and realize there's no way on earth those Buick-sized bags are going to fit, and your immediate response is to drive back to Costco to purchase one of those small chest freezers sitting near the entrance of the store. (This is troubling, because we all know that starting out with small, harmless freezers always leads to bigger freezers, and eventually a walk-in. It's a dangerous addiction, and the only cure is going cold turkey on cold storage.) As for storing non-perishables, there are storage sheds for sale at the back of the store and plenty of storage cabinets in Aisle Six. In other words, Costco seduces you to purchase goodies, and then forces you to return to the store to buy stuff in which to stash your stuff.

The next time you consider buying a six-pack of ketchup, five pounds of sliced pepperoni, or a case of Fruit Roll-ups, think about how long it will take to eat it and where you'll store it. If you're hoarding for the afterlife, remember, all bags are checked at the Pearly Gates. No food or beverages allowed. What a waste. I hope I finish that 10 pound bag of frozen oven fries before I croak.

Instead of buying stuff at Costco, I should probably just buy Costco stock. With a formula like this, their growth is almost certainly guaranteed.