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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30532 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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Please tell me more about Costco. What do you like about it? When you see the inside of Costco, are you blinded by its majesty? Paralyzed? Dumbstruck?

My (european) wife's reaction upon entering Costco for the first time could have been described as "awestruck". Like within seconds of entering and seeing the inside, she knew she loved it and that it was one of the best places on earth. And that's just inferior Canadian Costco. I can't imagine what American Costco would do to her.

From in His strength, I will dare and dare and dare until I die:

Costco is ENORMOUS. The parking lot must fit hundreds of cars, and on a Saturday afternoon it's mostly full. The shopping carts look practically big enough to drive down the street themselves. They go in through the huge automatic glass doors into a high-ceilinged, concrete-floored, vast echoing room with shelves and shelves and shelves of food. And a lot of things that aren't food, too, clothes and toys and bicycles and electronics and even furniture.

...

It's wonderful. She is not totally flabbergasted, she's been inside a small-for-this-world ethnic grocery store in California, but this is a glorious height of human achievement that belongs among the wonders of the world, and she loves it, and she bounces on her heels and squeals and praises God who made civilization and all who made this bit of it with His hand guiding.

"Everyone should live to see Costco, and Heaven and Hell should have it," she concludes this praise.

Though note that Costco was the first first-world supermarket foster-kid Iomedae saw - she isn't comparing it to the rest of modern retail. The Soviet Union was a lot richer than a sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting, and a random suburban Randalls was sufficiently mind-expanding to flip an important Soviet politician in a way which would eventually lead to the fall of the Soviet Union.

It isn't Costco that is special - it is the abundance of food that a first-world supermarket represents. Given the consistent failure of grocery retailers (Costco included) to compete outside their home countries, I don't think there is a final boss of supermarkets, and if there is it would be Walmart.

Take Europeans to Buccees. Everything is bigger in Texas, indeed...

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