I REALLY GET ANNOYED!

The other day I went to the big giant COSTCO. Why? Because I'm a good loving husband who does what he is told. In a very sweet voice she asked me: "Joe, will you do me a favor and go to COSTCO for me today?" It was really just another very nice way of asking me to go to Hell.

One of the things about the place is the parking. The spaces are too thin and the lot is always crowded with mostly old people who don't look when they pull out of the space. In backing out, they do it ever so slowly, making me wonder if I could sell before and after photographs, it takes that long.

If you wish to take your life into your own hands, try moving to or from your car. Dare a crazed driver while he/she hunts down space, preferably next to the entrance. They WILL mow you down and take a whole line of shopping carts with you.

Once you enter the building you need to do some serious negotiating to get past the crowd of bottle returnees, cart selectors and patrons at the liquor outlet. Then you pass the sentry, you know, that guy that is supposed to check your membership card.

Once inside, you immediately fall behind someone who stops, and just looks around, causing you to stop short and strain your hips and knee caps to avoid hitting them in the ass.

Then there is the family who shops together, side by friggin' side, casually strolling like it is a day around the lake. If you get lucky and manage to get to an aisle for something you need, there is always someone standing there, declaring their right to stand there and does not move, just looks and stands, reading the fine print.

It doesn't take long to find the suicide driver, pushing his basket at warp speed, heading for the milk section this time, and as he enters leaves his cart in the way and goes to the milk containers and reads all the dates stamp, and finding the latest dates on the containers tries to figure out which one was filled last that day.

Now, these places have samples. Yes, people go there to eat and eat for free. They camp out where the sample table is set up and hand out a sample to each and every member of their family, including borders if there renting. This, of course, causes crowding and bunching of people, all either trying to get by or having dinner.

Once you get by the maze of people, there is the check out that needs to be reckoned with. The lines seem to form with split ends that somehow merge into other lines. People confuse things by not moving up or just standing by, making you think they are on a line. Finding the line that moves well, or has the least amount of customers is not going to happen.

Once you reach the line to checkout, your wagon goes one way and you the other as they take your membership card. The picture on my card is of Fidel Castro, but by now, nothing matters except your credit card or money.

There is one more daunting task left, finding a box to carry out your stuff, hopefully with 4 sides and not the customary three-sided box.

AS you carry your box out, you stop at the exit to give the new sentry at Check-Point Charlie your receipt to check the items on the paper with the items in the three-sided box. They wave their eyes over everything and concentrate on marking the paper. And then you try to move to your car, and what happens, another numbskull stops in front of you for no apparent reason causing my tongue to swell, making me want to drop the box I'm carrying right on his/her head.

I hate Costco.